


Light Up the Darkness

by AAvery



Series: Hyuk/Leo oneshots & stories [8]
Category: EXO (Band), Monsta X (Band), SHINee, VIXX, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Also heavily inspired by Greek mythology, Based off the anime Fate/StayNight, Characters do die but it's okay, Don't need to have watched it to understand, Eventual Sexual Content, M/M, Mage AU, Supernatural Elements, depictions of violence, everything is alright in the end, minor gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:09:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 68,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AAvery/pseuds/AAvery
Summary: It had been a relatively normal trip to the grocery store, even if it was almost eleven o’clock at night and his groceries were a bit out of the ordinary.It wasn’t until he was walking home that things got a bit strange.Somehow, by a miracle perhaps, a first-generation mage such as himself had been chosen for one of the most dangerous tests of a mage’s abilities there was: A Holy Grail War.A battle royal between seven mages and their seven servants, servants of incredible power and heroic standings. The last one standing wins the ultimate prize, the Holy Grail itself.Heavily inspired by the Fate anime franchise, but you really don't have to have seen the anime to enjoy this. Main ship follows Leo/Hyuk





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Main ship is Leo x Hyuk but the other shippings and characters are just as important to the story. Just can't introduce them all at once, you know?

The smooth red marks on the back of his hand glistened in the street lights above. He had adjusted his groceries in his arms to better look at them as he walked home. The streets were empty at this time of night, so he didn’t feel in any immediate hurry.

The shapes were simple: a triangle, inscribed within a circle, and a small lightning bolt symbol within the triangle. All of which made up three complete seals on his right hand- as was to be expected. He still wasn’t exactly sure what the seals did but he knew exactly what they meant.

It had been a relatively normal trip to the grocery store, even if it was almost eleven o’clock at night and his groceries were a bit out of the ordinary.

It wasn’t until he was walking home that things got strange. A searing pain in his hand, a feeling of blood that wasn’t actually there trickling down his fingers, followed by the cool power that all magical seals left behind. But these weren’t just any normal magical seals used to enhance spells; these were special, infinitely more powerful, and meant only one thing.

Somehow, by a miracle perhaps, a first-generation mage such as himself had been chosen for one of the most dangerous tests of a mage’s abilities there was: A Holy Grail War.

He knew what this meant… but he had no idea how, or why, or even what to do.

He had no one to turn to.

His parents had no idea about his mage craft studies and he wasn’t skilled enough to detect other mages to find a teacher.

So he was on his own.

Taekwoon unlocked his front door upon coming home and walked inside. He placed a simple cloaking spell over his hand just in case his parents were still awake and would start asking question he hadn’t had time to think of an answer to yet.

Though he was in his last year of college, he still lived with his parents. The Jung family came from a long line of old money and as such lived rather extravagantly. The house was huge so there wasn’t much of a reason for Taekwoon- or for any of his three sisters- to move out. So Taekwoon stayed with his parents, his grandmother, and his three sisters. The house was big enough to where he could constantly and easily avoid everyone at any given moment anyway.

He quietly maneuvered around the dark foyer; it seemed his family had gone to bed.

Lucky.

What he bought at the grocery store was beyond an explanation.

Careful not to knock any decorative busts or vases over, Taekwoon made his way through the main floor to the scarcely used basement; summoning his familiar as he went. The cat mewled happily at his feet as he carefully descended the stairs.

“Yes I know, I’m happy to see you too,” Taekwoon told the cat, it purred in content as a response.

Once down the stairs, Taekwoon quickly made his way to the very back- a rather dark corner that held nothing but a heavy, unused oak bookshelf. Moving it away with a simple levitation spell he had recently mastered revealed a room only Taekwoon and his cat knew about. A small alcove he had once discovered by accident was the only place he felt confident no would find and mess with stuff that had the potential to kill them.

His cat bounded into the room and jumped on her perch almost the second the bookshelf was out of the way.

“Don’t get too comfortable, Daeguni,” he told the feline, setting his groceries down on the least cluttered work bench. “I need you to surveillance the house until I have a chance to put a barrier and some wards up.”

Daeguni huffed at him but otherwise listened, hoping off the perch Taekwoon had bought for her and leaving the alcove. Taekwoon shook his head at her obvious distaste. He couldn’t understand her sometimes, surveillance was her only job besides being a menace to the maids and groundskeepers.

He moved the bookshelf to cover the doorway again as she left, shrouding himself in complete darkness. Conjuring up a screen to show what his familiar saw as it roamed the grounds, Taekwoon threw it up on the wall above his work tables so he could easily observe it as he worked. His next step was throwing a couple balls of light into the air, so he could actually see what he was doing as he worked. The flickering light illuminated the small room, revealing a familiar sight.

The room was on the small side, but was big enough to accomplish what Taekwoon needed it for. Four work benches were pushed up against the longest wall, one right after the other to effectively make one long countertop. It was cluttered with various ingredients he had collected and potions he’d painstakingly created, a couple books sat scattered with notes written in the margins, and a ton of chalk of various colors for drawing runes made the whole ensemble a dusty mess. Against the wall, furthest from the makeshift door, was another bookshelf, much like the one currently blocking the door, that showcased Taekwoon’s collections of books on mage craft. He didn’t have very many, certainly not as much as he would like, but it was better than nothing. Miraculously, he had found twenty-some books in a molding box at a Goodwill he was donating some clothes to. Needless to say, he bought them immediately, even if there were hardly enough to fill one shelf. The other two walls of the room were reserved for drawing runes to practice spells, along with the floor, which was just as dusty with chalk as all the tables were.

It really wasn’t much, but it was more than what he had started with five years ago, so he couldn’t complain much.

He still wasn’t sure how he had been chosen for this grand battle royal. He hadn’t gone to the store with the intention of getting chosen and consequently having to summon a servant. He had just wanted to draw a summoning circle, something he read was essential for any mage. To summon his cat familiar, he had to draw a basic summoning circle but that one disappeared after he was finished with it. The one he would draw now would last for as long as he needed it and could be used to summon a wider variety of creatures.

As far as Taekwoon knew, no one in his current family was a mage or had been at one point. But an ancestor of his must have been at some point. His magical circuits had to have come from somewhere and he had a fairly large magical crest. Which, he read, meant a long magical history within his family. Crests were passed down through generations, they held all the magical power and knowledge that every mage before him had ever learned. So to have such a large one pointed to a long history with magic. Too bad it seemed he was the only mage to have been born recently to his family.

He was on his own for this. Unless he could find a non-hostile mage to help him, which he doubted greatly.

From what he could piece together from everything he read, the Holy Grail War consisted of seven mages all fighting against each other to determine who would achieve the Grail. Each mage, in order to fight the other, would summon a servant. But not just a normal familiar or other worldly creature, no a heroic spirit would have to be summoned. A hero from myth or reality; past, present, or future, brought to the mage to fight against each other. There were seven different classes as well from what Taekwoon gathered; though, he had no idea what those were. The book only mentioned the war as it talked about the art of summoning spirits and other things. He hoped the servant he summoned would be able to tell him more about it… if he was able to summon one, that was.

Something he did know, however, was that if he was able to win the entire battle, destroy all the other servants and have his be the last one standing; he and his servant would each get one wish. The Holy Grail was a wish granting device, the ultimate wish granting device. He had no idea what his wish would be… but he supposed he had time to figure that out.

First thing was first, though, he needed to summon a servant.

The longer he went without one, the more in danger he was. Who knew what the other mages were doing at this point.

Through the brief section on heroic spirits in his book on summoning, Taekwoon knew he needed a sort of catalyst to help him summon a spirit. Heroic spirits were the highest power familiar a mage could summon, which meant they were incredibly hard to summon without some sort of artifact that would connect the mage to the hero. Taekwoon really didn’t have anything other than a fossilized horn that was in the box with all his recently found spell books. He figured at the very least he failed to summon anything with the horn and would have to go ‘borrow’ an artifact from the museum he walked by every day on his way to school.

Getting down to business, Taekwoon took everything he bought out of the brown paper bag he carried in. Six candles, one to go at every point of the star, and a tub of chicken blood he paid off the butcher at the store to get. It was easy enough to erase the man’s memory afterward, which wasn’t really necessary, but it made Taekwoon feel less embarrassed about the whole ordeal.

Carefully following the picture detailed in the book, Taekwoon drew the hexagram on the floor with the blood of many an innocent chicken. It was supposed to be fresh, but Taekwoon couldn’t bring himself to slaughter chickens in his basement so he figured the blood from a butcher shop would be the next best thing.

When he finished, the star looked really awful; he never was good at drawing. He was pretty sure his mother only hung his drawings on the fridge when he was younger because that was what was expected. But the poor drawing abilities didn’t matter; after he passed magical energy through the blood, it would solidify into an actual seal.

The candles came next, one at each point of the very lopsided star. Observing his work, Taekwoon huffed in disappointment. It looked like a toddler finger painted the star on the ground after murdering twenty chickens. At least it wasn’t going to be this way for much longer, he hoped he never had to draw another one of these again… especially in a place where another, more talented mage could see it. He’d never live down that embarrassment and no amount of memory erasing spells would ease that burden.

Wiping his hands of all the blood, he flipped the page to the incantation he would need to summon his heroic sprit. He placed the fossilized horn amidst all the blood and stood at one of the points of the star. Taking a deep breath and one last look at the spell to make sure he had it memorized, Taekwoon rolled his sleeves up to reveal as much of his magic crest as possible. The slender blue lines were barely visible to the untrained eye but still covered the entirety of Taekwoon’s right arm and most of his torso. One last deep breath and he extended his arm in front of him, placed his left hand on his right bicep, and concentrated.

“For the elements, silver and iron, the foundation stone,

And the archduke of pacts.”

He started. Instantly, he felt the magical energy easily flow through his crest, causing a tingling through his entire body. The blue lines glowed bright against his pale skin as he continued the incantation.

“And for my great master, Jung, raise a wall against the wind,

And close the gates of four directions.”

Nothing happened for the first two lines but by the third line, the blood on the floor erupted in a purplish-red light.

“Come forth from the crown,

And follow the forked road leading to the kingdom.”

The messily drawn lines solidified slowly into a fully formed hexagram. The runes burned themselves into the stone flooring as Taekwoon continued through the sixth line.

By the seventh line, the horn in the middle of the now perfect hexagram cracked down the center, emitting a strong wind that blew Taekwoon’s hair out of his face and clothes against his front.

“Heed my words,

My will creates your body,

And your sword creates my destiny.”

Taekwoon’s voice grew louder with the end of the verse in order to hear himself over the wind that was growing stronger with every uttered word.

“If you heed the Grail’s call,

And obey my will and reason,

Then answer my summoning!”

The light grew brighter around him. He was very glad he put the bookshelf back and that he was in the basement. Had his workshop been anywhere else, everyone in the household would have awoken by now.

“I hereby swear,

That I shall be all the good in the world,

That I, Jung Taekwoon, shall defeat all evil in the world!”

From the horn, a blinding white light started to grow and expand. His voice cracked from the strain the magic was starting to put on his body. But he had to keep going, if he stopped now he might not be able to do something like this again.

“Seventh heaven clad,

And the great words of power,

Come forth from the circle of bindings,

Guardian of the Scales!”

He finished the incantation and blinding white light enveloped the entire room. Taekwoon couldn’t see anything, felt a searing pain go through his entire body. It was all he could do to stay in place and continue to pass magical energy through his crest for the spell to complete itself. He hoped this worked because he wouldn’t be able to do it again. The strain was too great, he felt as if his insides wanted to become his outsides.

When the light finally faded, Taekwoon collapsed to the ground, catching himself on his hands and knees. The spell was complete, and he had succeeded.

The horn he used for the ritual sat in pieces on the ground, a grey fog settled around the entire room that Taekwoon suspected was all the chalk that had dusted everything. A figure, clad in all black, stood in the center of the circle.

The newly summoned servant wore almost skin-tight armor, detailed with silver highlights. A cape was slung over his left shoulder and around his back, hiding only his left arm from sight. His right arm had no sleeve, exposing toned muscles. Tight black pants adorned the servant’s legs, along with black leather boots that came almost up to his knees. A hood hid his face from view; Taekwoon could see nothing but a black expanse where his face should be. Bright silver chains hung from his belt in long loops attached to a nasty looking knife that seemed to glow red in the dim lighting. The servant held a large lance in his right hand, tipped with two spikes: a bident that glowed the same way the knife did.

Taekwoon could hardly believe it… he had actually succeeded… and from what he could sense about the energy emitting from this servant, it was extremely powerful.

“My, it has been a long time since I’ve set foot on this plain of existence,” the servant said in a deep voice. It looked around the room for a moment before focusing its attention on Taekwoon. “Are you the one who summoned me?”

Taekwoon couldn’t find his voice, so he only nodded; still incredibly stunned by this feat he had accomplished.

“Well then, I am Hades, God of the Underworld, servant class: Lancer, at your service.” The servant took a dramatic bow. “But in this realm, you may call me Sanghyuk.”


	2. Chapter 2

“How long are you planning on sleeping, Master?” A voice asked as Taekwoon was slowly coming into consciousness. The voice was unfamiliar to him and yet, he still felt a connection to it. Opening his eyes carefully, Taekwoon was met with the face of stranger leaning over him, bent over his bed while he laid there. How did he get here? Wasn’t he in his workshop earlier? Who was this man?

“Who… Who are you? What happened?” Taekwoon asked, trying hard not to let his panic show. He was in his room, as far as he could tell, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember how he got there.

“Tch, I’m not surprised you don’t remember. You used entirely too much magical energy to summon me. You could have died if you were any lesser of a mage.”

The man stopped hovering over him and moved to sit in a chair that had been moved to the side of Taekwoon’s bed. Crossing his legs causally, the man regarded him silently, as if waiting for Taekwoon’s response.

Suddenly, the events of what he assumed were last night came back to him. He’d been chosen for some sort of battle to the death, and had summoned an actual heroic spirit to help him win. He still hadn’t the slightest idea how he got up in his room, but he had a feeling his incredibly attractive servant had something to do with that. The man was watching him very closely, gauging his reaction.

“So, you do remember,” the servant said, as if reading Taekwoon’s thoughts. “Good, I don’t think I could stay with a brain-dead Master.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Taekwoon started. “I summoned you last night.”

“And then collapsed from the exertion almost the second after I finished introducing myself. I carried you up here afterward… I hope this is your room.”

Taekwoon sat up slowly in his bed, regarding his servant carefully. He wore a simple black V-neck T-shirt and bleached, ripped skinny jeans. It was so different than what he wore last night, especially since he could see the man’s face now. Sharp jawline, slender eyes, styled ebony black hair swopped to the left out of his brown eyes; handsome was the first word that came to mind.

“Yeah this is it… thanks.”  

“I hope you don’t mind, I borrowed some of your clothes.” The servant said, picking at the shirt nonchalantly. “Not much fit, though; you need to eat more. You’re too thin.”

“I’m sorry?” Taekwoon cleared his throat uncomfortably, he wasn’t sure what else to say in response to that.

“No matter, we can fix that later.” The servant said, turning his attention back to his Master. “What should I call you? You passed out before I could get a name.”

“Taekwoon…” he said. “You can call me Taekwoon.”

“Nice to officially meet you, then, Master. In case you don’t remember, I’m Hades: God of the Underworld and all that. But for convenience, please call me Sanghyuk.”

“Why that name?” Taekwoon asked, rubbing his pounding head. He hadn’t woken up with a headache; he guessed the side effects to summoning a heroic spirit were starting to catch back up to him now that he was awake again. He felt completely drained, even though his clock told him he’d slept for a good twelve hours. It was a good thing his first class for today started at one o’clock.

“Because I like the name and I would stick out like a sore thumb if you introduced me as Hades.”

“You make a good point,” Taekwoon agreed, feeling stupid for even asking. That made sense after all; he should have been able to piece that together at the least.

“Well, enough small talk… What’s the plan to win this thing, Master?” Sanghyuk asked, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward to hear whatever he thought Taekwoon had to say. He didn’t know how to break it to him… Taekwoon had no idea what he was doing; he was hoping Sanghyuk could first answer a couple of his millions of questions. But his servant looked so expectant… Taekwoon felt reluctant to even bring up the fact he was inexperienced. Sanghyuk had just immediately assumed he was some master at mage craft when, in actuality, that was as far from the truth as it could be.

“I don’t…” Taekwoon cleared his throat again, suddenly feeling very nervous. “I don’t have a plan…”

Sanghyuk didn’t say anything, he only looked slightly confused as he waited for Taekwoon to say more.

“I was hoping you’d be able to explain some things to me first,” he finally got out. Sanghyuk leaned back again in his seat. Taekwoon searched his servant’s face for any sort of disappointment or frustration, but he found none. Only confusion and a bit of worry.

“Oh I see… You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself in to, do you?” Sanghyuk asked, sighing deeply.

“I didn’t do this to myself, you know, these symbols just appeared on my hand last night. I didn’t have much of a choice in this matter,” Taekwoon defended. It’s not like he actually wanted to participate in this battle. If it were up to him, he’d keep his magical abilities on the down low for his entire life.

“Really now? How interesting…” Sanghyuk mused for a second.

“What?”

“If you were specifically chosen to participate in a Holy Grail War… I believe that means you’re the head of a long lineage of mages.”

“Come again?” That didn’t sound right.

“Take your shirt off.”

“What?!”

“Just do it,” Sanghyuk rolled his eyes. “Be mature here. I’m eons old and you’re not a child.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with anything,” Taekwoon complained, but complied with what Sanghyuk asked of him.

“You really are too thin…” Sanghyuk tsked again, shaking his head once Taekwoon’s shirt was off. “But that’s beside the point.”

“What is the point, then?” Taekwoon hissed out, feeling entirely too exposed to someone he legitimately just met.

“Do you see all these lines?” Sanghyuk gestured to the slender blue lines creating thousands of intricate patterns on Taekwoon’s skin. They started at his right wrist and traveled all the way up his arm, to cover almost the entirety of the right side of his torso, going as far to disappear below the waistband of the sweatpants Taekwoon wore.

“You mean my family’s magic crest?”

“So you do know some things,” Sanghyuk agreed. “This is probably the largest one I have seen in my many years of existence. It could probably even rival Hecate’s, you know, the Greek Goddess of magic?”

“Yes, I know who she is.”

“Oh good, she’d be happy to hear that.” Sanghyuk seemed to lose himself in thought for a second, probably thinking about what the Goddess’s reaction would be. “Anyway! Such a large magic crest means generations upon generations of mages leaving their mark upon this crest. Every spell your ancestors have learned is literally at your fingertips. You don’t even have to have practiced the spell to use it, it’s all there. And from the size of this thing… your family’s magical history stretches centuries.”

Taekwoon looked down at the patterns etched into his skin in a new light. He knew all that already, but having another person affirm that made it seem real for the first time.

“Whether you know it or not, Master, you’re a pretty powerful mage, albeit an inexperienced one.”

“Oh…” Taekwoon slipped his shirt back on and swung his legs to sit at the edge of his bed, facing Sanghyuk. “What did you mean earlier when you said that I used too much magical energy to summon you?”

“You are aware of how a mage casts spells, aren’t you?”

He thought about that question for a second. How did he cast spells? Usually Taekwoon hardly ever had to think about it. He would just imagine what he wanted to happen and usually it happened; if it didn’t, he’d think about it just a little harder. He wasn’t sure if that was the answer Sanghyuk wanted to hear.

“I hardly have to think about it.”

Sanghyuk let out an exasperated sigh. “If I was a mage, I’d be furious with you.”

“What did I do?!”

“Nothing, the fact that you’ve never had to worry about your mana before speaks volumes.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like in video gamest hat have magic based characters?”

“Yeah?”

“They always have a little bar that limits how many spells you can use at one continuous time. And as you level your character up, the larger the bar gets and the more powerful spells you can then cast.”

“So, you’re saying that real life mages have to worry about that too?”

“Usually, but apparently your bar started off so gods damn large, you hardly have had to ever worry about overextending your limits. Except when it came to summoning me last night, it seems.”

“What would have happened… had I used all of my mana?” Taekwoon wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the answer to that.

“You would have literally ripped the fibers that give you your abilities from your body… not a lot of mages survive that,” Sanghyuk told him gently. So that’s why he felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out towards the end of the spell last night. He’d have to be more careful from now on, it seemed.

Taekwoon said nothing in response, letting Sanghyuk continue to explain.

“Being your servant, I can sense how much magical energy you have. That’s why I automatically assumed you were an experienced mage earlier, since you have such a large amount to draw upon. It’s practically endless,” Sanghyuk continued, “I should have no problem maintaining my physical form or using any of my abilities with your mana stores, so I wouldn’t worry too much about draining yourself. You’ll know when that starts to happen… if you cast a spell and start to feel extreme pain, for instance.”

“What do you mean: ‘maintain physical form’?” Taekwoon asked. He felt rather silly asking all these questions, but he needed to know everything if he were going to win this war. The first step to developing a strategy, was to know all your strengths, weaknesses and assets.

“Like any familiar, like that cat you have surveilling the house, I need your magical energy to manifest in this realm. To fight, to wear my enchanted armor, or use an ultimate attack, you must supply the energy for me to do so. Without you, I disappear so you’re not allowed to die.”

“I’ll try my best,” Taekwoon said with an eye roll. “But isn’t your job to stop that from happening?”

“Yes, as long as you allow me to act freely.”

“Are you saying you can’t normally?” 

“Kind of. Those ‘symbols’, as you called them, on your hand are what make you a Master in this war. They’re called command seals, and are what tie you to me. You can use them to boost my attack power or force me to do something I refuse to. But there are only three of them, and once they’re gone…”

“You’re gone.”

“Exactly, now you’re catching on. I could act on my own regardless of what you say and, if you don’t use a command seal, I can continue to do so. But I’d prefer to work with my Master rather than against him. Works out better for the both of us.”

Taekwoon was starting to feel more confident about his chances. With Sanghyuk willing to explain everything to him in ways he could understand, it made him feel less useless.

“Alright… so I remember you saying you’re a Lancer class servant.”

“That’s correct.”

“And there are seven classes of warriors, right?”

Sanghyuk nodded, patiently waiting for the barrage of questions about to come his way.

“What are the others and what does that all mean?”

“That’s a good question for strategy.” Sanghyuk thought over the question for a second. “As well as a question that has a rather long answer.”

“It’s important that I know.”

“Yes, I understand. Let’s start with me then.” Sanghyuk decided, “As you could probably put together, the Lancer class means I use a lance as my primary weapon. In my specific case, as befits Hades, I use a bident. Like a trident but with two prongs instead of three.”

“I know what a bident is.”

“Just being thorough,” Sanghyuk put his hands up in defense before continuing. “The Lancer class is among the three strongest classes, so you drew a good card.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Okay, okay, but it’s just the truth,” Sanghyuk defended again. “The strongest servant is the Saber class. Which, obviously, means they use some sort of sword as their primary weapon. They’re especially strong against Lancers unfortunately, but weak against the Archer class… Speaking of which…”

“The Archer class uses bows, right?”

“Makes sense, right?”

“What about the other four classes?”

“Well, there’s the Rider class, which comes with a specialized mount, like a horse or a chariot.” Sanghyuk continued. “The Assassin class, which specializes in stealth and sneak attacks. The Caster class, which is practically just another mage summoned to fight with an extra talent for magic. And finally, the Berserker class… they don’t really have a specialty but once you get them fighting it’s next to impossible for them to stop until either they’re dead or their opponent is dead.”

“Sounds like a problem.”

“You’re telling me,” Sanghyuk scoffed. “Though, I’m confident we can win… so now you know exactly what’s going on… got any ideas?”

Taekwoon laughed shortly. He hardly had enough details to formulate any sort of plan, especially with so many other mages out there. Forming a strategy would be next to impossible with so many confounding variables; too much uncertainty surrounded this entire ordeal.

“The first step would obviously be finding the other Masters and identifying their servants. I can sense them… but then that opens another problem, other mages can sense you, can’t they?”

Sanghyuk let out a laugh of his own.

“Don’t you know who you’re talking to? Obviously not. Thanks to my Helm of Darkness, I’m invisible to everything but my own Master. Undetectable by anything, even the most powerful seeking spell. The horn you used to summon me was part of my helm when I was still relevant to human culture.”

“Well, that’s good to know…” Taekwoon thought for a second. “So, if a mage were to see you as is…?”

“They’d think I was a normal human. Even in my servant form, they wouldn’t be able to tell me from a regular human or analyze how strong I am.”

“And would you be able to detect a servant? Even if they were ‘invisible?”

“Yes, as can every servant.”

“Well then Sanghyuk, why don’t we go do some scouting.”

*  *  *

“You know, when you said: ‘do some scouting’ this morning, I didn’t think that you actually meant go to school and then to work,” Sanghyuk complained. Taekwoon only heard his servant’s voice inside his head, but he could practically feel the discontentment pouring off the man from wherever he was in the building. Their day was uneventful to say the least, without considering the fact that Taekwoon had the God of the Underworld following him around all day. There weren’t any other mages in any of his two lectures today and now, at his night job as a student librarian, nothing was going on here either.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know we weren’t going to find anything,” Taekwoon defended.

“Why is your life so boring?” Sanghyuk complained, sounding whinier by the second. The servant had wanted to roam around the three-floored library unseen while Taekwoon worked till midnight when the building closed. “Why are you even working? I’ve been inside your house, I know you have a ton of money.”

“I’d like to earn my own money and not have to rely on my parents,” Taekwoon said aloud to an empty room. It wasn’t exactly the truth but it wasn’t much of a lie either. He swirled his coffee cup equally as bored as his servant. Hardly anyone ever came in after nine o’clock, preferring their own dorm rooms or apartments to the library at late hours. The only other people present were in the small coffee bar in the corner of the building, closing shop for the night. Taekwoon was their only customer this late at night and his shift was almost over, no reason to stay open any longer. He really wasn’t worried about any of them overhearing him talk to ‘himself’ out loud. They were far enough away and Taekwoon wasn’t exactly loud. “And my life isn’t boring, it’s normal.”

“Well then normal is boring,” Sanghyuk scoffed. “We didn’t even run in to any mages today.”

“Oh darn, we didn’t have to fight anyone.” Taekwoon rolled his eyes even though he knew his servant couldn’t see, wherever he was in the library.

“At least it would be more interesting than this.”

“Would you stop being such a drama queen? This place closes in literally ten minutes and then we can go home.”

“Thank the gods.”

“You literally just thanked yourself.”

“Your point?”

Taekwoon sighed, throwing away the paper cup that held his life source for the past few hours.

“Come on, there’s not much of a reason for us to be here. There’s no one here, no one will care if I leave ten minutes early.”

“Finally, you’re starting to look exhausted.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“Probably because it’s almost midnight.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

Sanghyuk laughed as Taekwoon felt his servant return to his side; still invisible but there all the same.

“I know, it’s just fun to mess with you.”

“Whatever, just stay hidden. It’d look suspicious if someone outside my family followed me home so late at night.”

“Or just promiscuous.”

Taekwoon didn’t even have to see his servant to know how suggestive he was being.

“Stop that.”

“What?! It’s a valid point.”

“I’m sure that’s the first thing other Masters would think,” Taekwoon said, turning the lights to motion sensor so they’d turn off when the last person left and shutting down the computer grids.

“You never know.”

“Just stay hidden.” Taekwoon asserted, beginning to leave the building.

“Whatever you say… just remember, it’s dark and there’s hardly around anymore. Prime time for someone to attack…”

“I’m well aware of that…”

“You can’t die.”

“You’ll just have to protect me then.”

Sanghyuk laughed, sending a pleasant vibration through Taekwoon’s head.

“What else am I here for?”

“Hell if I know.”

Exiting the library into the cold November air, Taekwoon began the long walk back to his house. It was quiet, especially since Sanghyuk was content to just enjoy the night air and keep his mouth shut for the first time that day. Hardly anyone was outside; reasonable since it was practically midnight.

The air was cold, but not unpleasantly so; a rare warm front had blown in lately so walking home wasn’t a problem yet. The sky was clear; a thousand twinkling lights illuminating his path along with the occasional flickering streetlight. A light fog was beginning to form along the sidewalk, blowing off from the grass and spreading to covering the entire ground. These were Taekwoon’s favorite nights to walk home.

It was so peaceful. If he didn’t think about anything else besides how fresh the air smelled, he could forget about whatever dangers might be awaiting him in this ridiculous war. It was relaxing; it made him feel infinitely less anxious.

“Master, I really hate to interrupt your peace.” His servant’s voice sounded different than the normal playful tone.

“What is it?” Taekwoon asked quietly, sensing the warning in Sanghyuk’s tone.

“Something approaches… up ahead.”

Taekwoon looked where Sanghyuk had said. It was dark and the streetlights were long past due for a change, so he couldn’t see anything more than a figure shrouded in shadows. But Sanghyuk had been correct, there was something approaching them.

“Stay hidden,” Taekwoon ordered, continuing to walk forward. Maybe it was nothing… he didn’t want to jump into battle if nothing was there.

“Are you crazy?!”

“Just do it. It could be nothing.”

“Yeah, but it could also be a servant bent on destroying what they think is a Master without a servant!”

Taekwoon ignored Sanghyuk; the person was close enough for Taekwoon to make out now. He wasn’t particularly tall, or broad but he definitely stuck out.

He wore a dark magenta colored cloak, hiding most of his body and masking his face from view. Much like the way Sanghyuk had been wearing his hood the first time he was summoned, Taekwoon couldn’t make out a face.

“It’s a servant, Master, you can’t take it on by yourself.”

“Just do as I say, we’re going to see what it wants first,” Taekwoon decided, halting in place as the unknown servant did the same.

“You’re insane!”

Taekwoon paid no mind to his complaining servant. He knew what he was doing. The opposing servant couldn’t tell that Taekwoon had one of his own, so a sneak attack would be more effective.

Putting his hands in his pockets, Taekwoon waited for the servant to say something. A mocking laugh echoed around the small side street.

“I thought it was ridiculous when my Master told me there was a mage walking around that hadn’t summoned a servant yet, but here you stand.” The servant called to him across the distance they still stood apart. It was clear by how much distance the servant stood away that a fight was what it had come for. He continued laughing; if anything, it rose in volume. “How pathetic.”

“And just who are you to cast such a judgment?” Taekwoon called back.

“Does it matter? You’ll be dead soon anyway and my Master can pry three more command spells from your corpse.”

Taekwoon could feel Sanghyuk’s impatience at the other servant’s blatant intentions.

“Master, he’s going to kill you. From what I can tell, that’s Caster. The servant with an affinity for magic,” he told him.

“I can handle this one, stay.” Taekwoon commanded one last time, starting to feel like he was talking to a dog. “I’d like to know who would do such a thing… and from the looks of it your Master was too scared to show up here himself. I don’t even have a servant and yet he sends his servant to deal with me!” He taunted.

“How dare you speak to me about my Master like that!” Caster hissed, throwing his right arm out to the side. Instantly, four magic seals appeared, hovering behind the servant and ready to attack when he gave the command. The swirling mess of magic that each seal contained glowed a bright purple in the dark night. “How dare you speak to me, Zelos, God of Jealousy, servant of the Caster type, in that sort of tone. I will kill you where you stand!”

Zelos, as he had named himself, swung his extended arm forward, pointing towards Taekwoon and sending blistering hot flames billowing from the seals he had summoned. And yet still, Taekwoon did not allow Sanghyuk to manifest. Despite the eminent doom approaching his way in the form of absolute hellfire, he wasn’t about to let some third-rate God brush him off so easily.

The flames approached fast, faster than Taekwoon had time to breathe, had time to even recognize how stupid this plan was. But he knew what he was doing and if he couldn’t pull it off, Sanghyuk would step in. Passing energy through his magic crest, he knew the spell he needed was there. He had no idea what it was, but it was there somewhere. His arm erupted in blue as his crest lit up, extending his arm in front of him, ready to cast. Right at his fingertips, a white light exploded quicker than the flames could come at him. The pure white magic expanded fast, creating a wall that stretched to the buildings on either side of him and just as high, blocking the entire street, protecting him from flames that would have otherwise killed him instantly.

When the flames hit his wall, he felt the strain on his body to keep the protective spell up. But he couldn’t drop it now; he needed to make a statement to this servant that he wasn’t so easily discarded; so instead, he pushed more energy in to the shield. Sending the flames towards the sky as they hit the white barrier, Taekwoon could feel Sanghyuk’s surprise… he himself was equally as surprised by what he was doing… but he couldn’t do it much longer. Just when he thought he couldn’t hold on any longer, the flames stopped just as quickly as they had come.

It took everything Taekwoon had to stay upright and look unaffected by what he just did, holding the shield up just long enough for the opposing servant to see it before dropping it and no longer feeling the strain on his body.

“You’re still alive?” Zelos said, sounding slightly impressed. “It seems my Master and I have grossly underestimated you. A mistake that won’t be made again.”

Taekwoon watched as the servant jumped into the air, effortlessly gliding upward to have the height advantage over Taekwoon. His cloak billowed outward, appearing to become large feather wings as he hovered high above the ground.

“I won’t hold back anything, anymore,” the servant declared, one large purple seal appearing behind him. Taekwoon knew whatever would come from that mess of magic he could not block; it was all he could do to stay standing upright; he’d have to let Sanghyuk fight. “Say hello to Hades for me, servant-less Mage.”

Magenta tendrils of magic erupted from the seal behind the flying Mage, magic that had no other purpose than to hit Taekwoon with brute force. Taekwoon waited, watching the magic swirl towards him at breakneck speed. He couldn’t do anything more to block it… but it seemed he wouldn’t have to.

The magic stopped half a second before it would have collided with Taekwoon. Hovering dangerously close to his face was one singular tendril, powerful enough to kill him and yet it did nothing.

The servant sighed deeply as Taekwoon sensed the presence of presumably Caster’s Master. A figure stood down the street a little ways, watching the battle, looking eerily familiar to Taekwoon yet unrecognizable all the same.

“We’ll have to continue this later, my Master calls. I won’t forget this insult, however, remember that. Have a nice night, servant-less mage.” The servant began to disappear, turning to thousands of tiny purple specks before his eyes.

And with that, he was gone, blown away like dust in the wind along with the unknown Master down the road.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading 
> 
> All comments appreciated, tell me what you think.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Sanghyuk berated as soon as they were sure both threats had gone. Taekwoon had collapsed to the ground, catching himself on his hands and knees, coughing up a good amount of blood as he did so. He knew he hadn’t overextended himself, not like he had the night he summoned Sanghyuk, yet he felt just as drained and, on top of that, was coughing his guts up.

“I…” Taekwoon started to say but cut himself off with another drawn out coughing fit. He felt Sanghyuk materialize beside him, placing a comforting hand on his back and waiting for him to stop coughing. “I didn’t want to show the enemy my hand just yet,” he finally got out, sitting up on his knees to look at his servant. Sanghyuk sat similarly across from him, still dressed in casual clothes to blend in with everyone else. “If they think I don’t have a servant, they’d be caught off guard when they find I actually do, making it easier to defeat, or at least seriously injure them.”

Sanghyuk sighed.

“I understand your reasoning but that won’t be necessary, you jerk! You can’t die! If I die, I just go back to the Underworld waiting to be summoned again for another war. But if you die, that’s it! You’re not coming back!”

“I know that,” Taekwoon said. “But I knew I could handle it. If I’m not mistaken, the only reason that servant was sent here was to test my abilities. The servant, itself, wanted to kill me, but the master stopped him.”

“What if that Master hadn’t stopped Caster?” Sanghyuk asked, sounding much more worried than Taekwoon expected. He guessed that the God of the dead was a little sensitive when it came to people dying.

“We can sit here and play the ‘what if’ game all night but that’s not going to change what happened.”

“Fine, fine.” Sanghyuk rubbed Taekwoon’s shoulder, seeming to comfort himself more than Taekwoon at the moment. “I just hate to see needless death, especially when I could do something about it. Just promise to let me know your plan next time, so I’m not just sitting idly by while you die. You can speak to me through telepathy too, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Taekwoon spit out some blood that he hadn’t gotten out of his mouth earlier. “And I promise I’ll let you know what I’m doing, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to like it.”

“I’d expect nothing less form someone like you,” Sanghyuk said with a laugh, letting his hand relax and slip down Taekwoon’s arm. But the gentle touch froze suddenly as Sanghyuk seemed to have sensed something potentially dangerous.

Taekwoon felt it too, the slight tingling through his entire body; like the fibers that gave him his abilities were reacting to the other’s nearby.

“Can you walk?” Sanghyuk whispered, sounding more urgent with every word.

Taekwoon shook his head no instead of answering, feeling a little helpless.

Sanghyuk maneuvered around Taekwoon, slinging one of his arms around his shoulder and hoisting him up. Carefully, Taekwoon pushed himself up as best as he could, leaning heavily on Sanghyuk for support.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Sanghyuk said. “You’re in no position to fight and I’d rather not have you lying on the ground helpless while we’re being attacked.”

“Good plan,” Taekwoon agreed, walking as much as he could with how weak his legs felt just to alleviate some of the burden on Sanghyuk.

The aura they could both detect was different than the first pair of servant and master they had just met. The servant was a lot stronger than the other as well, not as strong as Taekwoon could tell Sanghyuk was, but still a threat they shouldn’t deal with quite yet, definitely not in the condition Taekwoon was in. The unknown pair didn’t move closer, however, just seemed to be watching from a distance. All they would see was a “regular human” helping a mage that was just attacked back to his house. If they saw the previous battle, they would know to keep their distance from Taekwoon so neither of them were very worried about an attack. But it was probably better to get out of there just in case the pair decided to attack anyway.

When they were far enough away that Taekwoon could barely sense the possible enemy’s magical energy, he felt safe enough to start talking again.

“Why am I like this?” Taekwoon asked, just beginning to find the strength to attempt walking without Sanghyuk’s aid.

“What? You mean exhausted even though you didn’t overextend your mana reserves?” Sanghyuk asked, laughing slightly when Taekwoon nodded in agreement. “You really are super inexperienced.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s not my fault I never had a teacher.”

“Which is weird since you had to have gotten that crest from somewhere. You’re not born with it, someone in your family had to have given it to you,” Sanghyuk mused.

“I know that, I just don’t know who.”

“That’s a question for a later date, I suppose. The reason you feel the way you do, and are coughing up all your insides, is because you woke up a whole bunch of dormant magical circuits.”

“Magical circuits?”

“The fibers within your body that give you your power. They act kind of like circuits in any sort of machine, powering your abilities. You’ve never used most of them, except for the most basic of them, so they all ‘went to sleep’ so to speak. With that spell, even though it hardly made a dent in your mana, you woke up basically the rest of your circuits throughout your entire body.”

“Why does it hurt so much?”

“It’s kind of like getting struck by lightning without all the possible brain and heart damage. Everything had energy passed through it at once and with no warning, it overloaded your body. Usually, a mage slowly forms their circuits over time, not waking them all up at once.”

“Whoops.”

“Yeah, whoops. You should be fine tomorrow, though, and something like this shouldn’t happen again regardless of how powerful a spell you use next. You should have an easier time casting any sort of spell from now, too.”

“I see,” Taekwoon said absentmindedly. If he was able to deflect the Caster servant’s first spell basically like it were nothing and all that was stopping him from continuing to fight was more circuits being made readily available, then there was no saying what he would be able to accomplish the next time he was attacked. He had a feeling he would have no problem against the weaker servant classes, even without having Sanghyuk fight for him. It was beginning to look like he and Sanghyuk would make a pretty hard team to beat… Taekwoon just needed to learn actual spells to cast instead of just hoping to find one in his magic crest. “Do you know who Zelos is?”

“Unfortunately, I’m all too familiar with my brother’s winged enforcers,” Sanghyuk grumbled, practically spitting out the word ‘brother’. “He is, or was, I suppose, the God of jealousy, zeal, and strife. Working for Zeus kind of like a cop and possibly the most annoying of all the angelic workers Zeus employed.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?” Taekwoon asked, untangling himself from Sanghyuk. He didn’t need any help walking anymore, his strength had come back relatively quick.

“It depends, he’s been summoned as a Caster which makes sense, but that probably means he can use all of his mind-altering abilities. Keying in to an opponent’s envy and using that to turn them against other opponents or even random nearby objects. He could literally drive someone insane.”

“Oh… that’s really not good.”

“Yeah, but there would be practically no other way for a servant like him to win otherwise.”

“Could you defeat him?”

“As long as I’m able to fend off his hallucination magic.”

“We’ll have to be careful when dealing with him then.”

“We’ll have to be careful when dealing with all the other servants. Without knowing their true identities there’s no telling what they’d all be capable of. The only one you can truly trust is me.”

“Coming from Hades, the most untrustworthy God in Greek mythology,” Taekwoon joked.

“Excuse me?” Sanghyuk asked, disbelieving. “I see, you mortals only remember what my brother let you know.” He answered his own question with an eyeroll. Taekwoon wondered briefly, and a bit too late, if Sanghyuk had actually taken his joke seriously. The spirit sighed deeply, seeming to calm his growing anger instantaneously.

 “I can’t say I’m surprised, my brother was especially talented in making sure only what he wanted you mortals to know is what you heard.” Taekwoon didn’t even have to look to sense the barely contained anger. He guessed he’d opened old wounds.

“I’m not always a bad guy, it’s just the way the stories were twisted.”

“I was only joking.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Sanghyuk sighed again. Taekwoon made a mental note not to bring up Greek mythology tropes ever again. “Let’s just get you home before you collapse again.”

*  *  *

Sanghyuk was right about being perfectly fine the next day. Taekwoon awoke feeling especially energized; though, he wasn’t entirely positive it wasn’t just sleeping for thirteen hours that did it. He never had classes on Thursdays; his only task for the day was working on homework and his shift at the library which started a little earlier than normal.

So he spent his day googling mage craft; it was a long shot but he had to do something. He needed to find something, anything, to help him learn how to best utilize his abilities. He only ended up finding what he assumed to be regular people playing at magic or just simple parlor tricks with cards. It was wholly unhelpful and a huge waste of time, but he didn’t exactly have very many options.

Sanghyuk tried to help, but, as he stated on numerous occasions, he wasn’t a mage.

“So, you’ve never learned a legit spell?” Sanghyuk had asked as Taekwoon lorded over his small collection of spell books in his basement workshop. He wasn’t in the room with Taekwoon, instead he was probably sitting somewhere high up in order to survey the entire house and its yard. Sanghyuk was a better lookout than his cat could ever be since he could actually do something about the intruders instead of just hissing at them.

“No, I know a few, there were a couple in these books,” Taekwoon said, closing one book and opening the next one, hoping to find something on offensive/defensive magic instead of just basic spells. “But I’ve never actually needed to fight with magic before.”

“Most mages never have to, unless that’s specifically your job or you’re just an asshole,” Sanghyuk agreed. “But you’ll have to be careful when fighting with magic. It’s unpredictable.”

Taekwoon didn’t say anything, only waited for Sanghyuk to continue. He had learned that his servant really like to talk and trying to get him to stop only ended with him talking more.

“Mages are tricky and super annoying to fight. They never fight fair, always using tricks and deception to further their usually selfish goals…” Sanghyuk ranted on. Taekwoon cleared his throat exaggeratedly; Sanghyuk did know he was talking to a mage, right?

“Well I mean, you did go against that servant last night just to prove a point, didn’t you? So, you’re just as bad, just slightly less manipulative. You’ve got a kinder heart than most mages.”

“And you know this because?”

“Dude, you literally brought the spirit of your dead cat back to life to serve as a familiar. If that doesn’t scream softie, I don’t know what does. Plus, I know people. Unlike most of my siblings, I had to deal with mortals all the time. I know how humans work,” Sanghyuk explained.

“Alright, you’ve made your point,” Taekwoon grumbled, slamming his book closed with finality. He wasn’t going to find anything. He’d just have to wing it and pray for the best. It’s a good thing he and his ancestors seemed to have had the same imagination when it came to making spells. “How’d you know about the cat anyway?”

“Are you serious?” Sanghyuk laughed. “I’m the God of the dead.”

“Right, stupid question.” Taekwoon stood up from his desk, placing the books he had taken down back on their shelves before leaving his workshop; his cat followed along after him. Sanghyuk wasn’t wrong, the spell he used to summon his cat familiar was one that reanimated an undead spirit. Taekwoon really didn’t have much else to use, so he brought back his cat that had died earlier in the year. Without the materials to summon any other type of familiar, the spirit type would just have to work for now. “Are you dressed in street clothes?” He asked his servant, moving the bookshelf to hide his space once again.

“Yeah, are we leaving?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to go to work.”

Sanghyuk immediately groaned.

“You have to go again? I’m going to die of boredom!”

“That’s how jobs work,” Taekwoon said with an eyeroll. “You can stay in physical form if that makes it better…”

“Would it look weird?” Sanghyuk asked, materializing behind him as Taekwoon emerged from the basement and on to the main floor.

“You’d look like another student worker, or a friend of mine who stopped by to visit.”

“Would you buy me one of those concoctions you were drinking last night?”

“You mean coffee?” Taekwoon asked, grabbing his bag and making sure he had his wallet before leaving.

“Yes that. It smelled wonderful.”

“I guess it’s only fair. You’ve never had coffee before?”

“When would I have had a coffee?”

“You’re a millennia old God, I just assumed that at some point you might have had a coffee.”

“Well you would be wrong.”

“My apologies, your godliness.”

Walking to the library with Sanghyuk by his side was an experience Taekwoon never expected he would have. Yesterday, Sanghyuk hadn’t been in physical form just to be safe. But ever since they were attacked. Taekwoon didn’t care so much about being conspicuous; because even though another mage couldn’t detect Sanghyuk, they could detect him.

Taekwoon was pretty used to getting stared at when he walked around during campus busy hours. He was always dressed like the millionaire he was and, though he disagreed, people told him he was attractive; so, it was no small wonder why people stared at him. But with Sanghyuk, someone arguably more attractive and equally as affluently dressed, they really turned heads. So much for staying on the downlow.

Taekwoon’s shift was uninteresting, to say the least, just like the night before. Sanghyuk sat behind the desk with him, reading books on Greek mythology and complaining about them.

“You see, I didn’t actually kidnap Persephone. Sure, she was pretty and everything but above all else she was a spoiled brat and totally not my type. Why would I want someone like that, let alone kidnap her? She just wanted to get back at her mother by going after the bad boy, rebellious teenager things. And I got blamed for it! I got yelled at for eons by her mother all for something that wasn’t even my fault!”

“Sounds like a real problem,” Taekwoon said absentmindedly, filing away a couple papers he had to fill out for students to check out the various amenities the library had to offer besides books.

“It is! I’m not a bad guy: I helped defeat Kronos right along with all the others! I’m the oldest of my siblings, and seniority means nothing to them. Stick me in the Underworld, they were afraid of me, that’s what it was.”

Taekwoon sighed, sensing how worked up his servant was getting.

“Stop reading those books if you already know they’re going to make you angry,” he told him, taking away the one Sanghyuk held in his hand.

“Yeah, I know, I know.”

“What does it matter anyway? You’re still an all-powerful God, arguably stronger than a lot of them, with your own realm that none of them would ever dare enter… except maybe Hermes.”

Sanghyuk seemed to consider what Taekwoon was saying for a minute, a devious smile slowly making its way on to his face.

“You make an excellent point, my dear Master. I like you.”

“Glad that’s been established then,” Taekwoon said with an eyeroll, turning back around to face his desk. A student stood there, patiently waiting for the librarian to assist him.

“You must be an idiot,” the student said as soon as Taekwoon looked up at him. He didn’t recognize the boy; he seemed a little too young to be an actual college student but that wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. Anyone with a library card could check out books; they got high school students coming in here all the time to write reports.

But this kid, though he had a couple books with him, didn’t look like he was here to write a report.

“Can I help you with something?” Taekwoon asked, slightly confused but mostly offended. Sanghyuk shifted in his chair behind him, pretending to read from a book but Taekwoon knew he was actually listening in. It was very faint, like a cloaking spell had been placed over the boy, but Taekwoon could sense low energy magic from him. Sanghyuk could probably sense it too; they should stay on high alert.

The boy seemed to take a step back, take a deep breath. He was tall, put together, and overall very handsome. He wore tons of layers even though it wasn’t really that cold outside. He carried a bag over his shoulder with the initials for a local high school embroidered on it; so the kid really was only in high school.

“My name’s Lee Hongbin,” the kid introduced himself, holding his right hand out for a handshake. Taekwoon noticed, with a start, the three red seals on Hongbin’s hand: Another master. This wasn’t some sort of accidental meeting, this was intentional. Why else would he show off his seals?

“Nice to meet you. Hongbin, what can I do for you?” Taekwoon said, shaking the boy’s hand. He still had a cloaking spell over his own hand so Hongbin wouldn’t be able to see anything.

“You can start by not being such an idiot,” he scoffed, pulling Taekwoon’s right hand forward and examining it. He waved his left hand over Taekwoon’s right, easily dispelling the glamour covering the command seals. “I thought so.”

Taekwoon ripped his hand from Hongbin’s grasp, putting the glamour spell back on his hand. “What the hell? What are you doing?” He hissed. Sanghyuk uncrossed his legs in the chair behind him, ready to jump up if the need arose.

“You,” Hongbin pointed accusingly, practically spitting the word out. “Need to get yourself a servant. Walking around without one is a death wish! Are you stupid or something? Do you know what’s at stake here?”

“I don’t see how any of that concerns you.” Taekwoon said, deciding that denying any involvement in this war was pointless at this point.

“Oh it most certainly concerns me, because I’d like to propose an alliance,” Hongbin finished, placing the books he apparently wanted to check out on the desk between him and Taekwoon.

“What?” Taekwoon wasn’t entirely sure he understood what was going on. First getting tested last night and now another master, an enemy, wanted an alliance.

“You are clearly super inexperienced in the ways of mage craft. You don’t even have anything disguising your magical energy. I could sense someone like you across town.” Hongbin leaned against the desk, getting as close to Taekwoon as he could. He must’ve noticed that Sanghyuk was listening in. “I could help you.”

“Why do you want me?”

“One of the other members of my alliance saw you fight Caster last night. That’s some serious magic you used and with a little help, our team would be unstoppable.”

So that presence he and Sanghyuk had sensed last night was one of Hongbin’s friends… he wasn’t sure how he felt about this. He really didn’t want to enter in to anything without first consulting Sanghyuk and he couldn’t quite do that with Hongbin watching him. Hongbin thought, like the master and servant last night, that Taekwoon didn’t have a servant of his own and Taekwoon really wanted to keep it that way.

“So, what do you say?” Hongbin asked.

Taekwoon didn’t say anything for a second, waiting to see if Sanghyuk had any input, but his servant stayed silent. Weren’t people looking to form an alliance supposed to impress possible allies? Prove that they were worth trusting? Hongbin hadn’t done anything of the sort so how could Taekwoon be expected to trust him? An alliance did have its ups and downs in a war like this, but in the end, everyone would have to turn on each other and Taekwoon wasn’t sure he wanted to be apart of that. He made up his mind then.

“I’ll have to pass,” he said, grabbing the books Hongbin had brought to the desk and beginning the process of checking them out. The books, ironically enough, were all on Greek mythology.

“What?” Hongbin looked genuinely taken aback. “You don’t even have a servant… how can you turn down an offer to learn more about magic?”

“Because I do know about magic, regardless of what you think. And who says, I don’t have a servant? I’m perfectly capable of handling myself, kid.” Taekwoon said, placing the processed books back on the table for Hongbin to take.

“Fine.” He grabbed his books. “But if you change your mind, come find me.”

And with that he whipped around and promptly left the library. How would he find Hongbin? The city was huge, and the kid obviously kept his magic hidden pretty well… Taekwoon had a feeling he’d be seeing more of the teen around before the war was over.

He heard Sanghyuk get out of his chair and walk forward to lean against the desk next to him.

“That was weird,” he said.

“Little bit, especially since I was just attacked last night.”

“Seems a little fast to ask someone for an alliance.”

“That was my thought. Plus, we’d have to turn against each other in the end.”

“Probably for the best,” Sanghyuk agreed.

Taekwoon watched Hongbin’s retreating figure through the glass doors of the library, wondering if the kid actually wanted an alliance or just someone easy to take along till the end. He’d have to face him at some point in this war, though. He wondered if all the other participants were as young as Hongbin was. He hoped not… he really didn’t want to have to fight, and potentially harm, children.

“Hey Sanghyuk.”

“What?”

“Do you want that coffee now?” I think it’s around that time I take a break.”

Sanghyuk bumped his shoulder into Taekwoon’s, exciting exclaiming: “Yes, let’s go!”

Taekwoon laughed as Sanghyuk ran around the front desk, straight towards the coffee bar in the corner. It was hard to remember sometimes that this man was actually the terrifying God Taekwoon had summoned only two nights ago.

After buying both of them coffees- a latte for himself and something chocolaty for Sanghyuk- Taekwoon led them through the library and out the back. Behind it was a relatively secluded set of tables, it was a bit chilly outside, but it wasn’t terrible. Plus, if Taekwoon could hardly handle staying in that library all day, Sanghyuk must have been dying.

They sat at a table furthest from all the students also sitting outside so they could talk freely. Taekwoon doubted anyone would be listening in- or even if they were, Taekwoon doubted they’d think anything of it- but better safe than sorry.

“This really isn’t that bad,” Sanghyuk said, sipping his coffee intermittently. He pulled the coat he wore around him a little tighter, nuzzling in to the scarf around his neck. “It’s nice since it’s kind of cold out.”

“It’s not that bad for November,” Taekwoon argued.

“Yeah, but you’re used to this kind of weather. Where I’m from, it hardly ever gets below seventy.”

“Fair enough,” Taekwoon conceded, thinking about how he would take the weather in Greece over the weather here any day. “It’s not for everyone, that’s for sure.”

“Like that Hongbin kid, he was wearing like four layers.”

“I noticed,” Taekwoon agreed.

“Maybe he was trying to hide something.”

“Like what?”

“Like-“

Whatever Sanghyuk was going to say was abruptly cut off. Out of nowhere, something long and golden whizzed just a hair past Taekwoon’s face, exploding on impact with the cement and sending empty tables flying.

Taekwoon’s brain immediately went in to overdrive; that could’ve been his life if he were sitting just a faction of an inch closer to the table they sat at. He jumped up from his seat immediately, Sanghyuk quickly following suit as the nearby students scrambled to get away from any other explosion that may hit.

“God damn it, I missed,” someone shouted from above them. Looking up, what Taekwoon took to be another servant stood on the roof. He wore blindingly bright, gold armor; a laurel of the same color and equally as bright adorned his head. The servant held a bow in one hand, reaching behind his back to grab another arrow with his other. A man stood next to him, presumably his master, looking down at the scene with a slightly worried expression twisting his features. Taekwoon recognized the man next to the servant, he was in his musical theory class. Park Chanyeol, if he remembered correctly. How many of the people he saw on a daily basis were actually mages? And how many of them now wanted to kill him because of this Holy Grail war?

“Careful Baekhyun… Don’t hit any of the students…” Chanyeol warned the servant, apparently calling himself a culturally appropriate name to blend in like Sanghyuk was.

“Don’t worry, I won’t miss this time.” The servant nocked another arrow. Taekwoon took this as his cue to stop standing around and get ready to defend himself.

“On my signal, we’re running inside the library,” Taekwoon told Sanghyuk, who begrudgingly nodded.

“I could take him out easily. Archers are easy, you just get close to them and they’re powerless.”

“Yeah, I’m sure but we’re not attacking. There are too many bystanders… too many people who could get hurt.”

Sanghyuk looked from the servant on the roof to the panicking students watching in horror with their cellphones pulled out before agreeing with Taekwoon. An all-out battle between two servants and their respective mages could be catastrophic to this area and the people who couldn’t escape.

The Archer released his arrow, sending another golden bolt straight for Taekwoon. Without even thinking, Taekwoon’s crest activated, causing light to erupt from under his coat sleeve. He needed to move faster; there had to be a spell for that. Purple light shone under his feet at the thought, and he jumped out of the way of the first arrow. Three more came flying down at him, but with the extra speed, he was able to dodge them all.

“Now,” he shouted towards Sanghyuk, who understood immediately. They both took off towards the doors to the library. If they could get inside, they’d be safe for a while. The Archer wouldn’t follow them in; he’d lose the higher ground.

Before they could reach the door, flames billowed down from above, blocking their path. Taekwoon only just barely avoided the fire, jumping back as quick as his spell would allow.

“Not so fast, Taekwoon, you’re not getting away,” Chanyeol shouted down at him. Taekwoon could see the glowing red lines of the other mage’s crest from there. A pyromancer… wonderful. One that knew who he was, too.

A volley of arrows came down at them from the laughing servant; he seemed to be having the time of his life, shouting about how there was nowhere to run. As fast as he could, Taekwoon place a shield spell around him and Sanghyuk, who was still acting as if he were just another bystander in all this mess.

“Have another plan, Master?” Sanghyuk asked.

Taekwoon shook his head no, unable to find his voice through the strain of keeping his shield functioning. Those arrows were strong, he wouldn’t be able to deflect them forever and he doubted the archer would ever run out.

He didn’t have any other plan… where could they go without Archer following them or Chanyeol blocking them. Chanyeol probably knew where Taekwoon lived… everyone usually did. It was hard to miss the manor only a short distance away, so they couldn’t even escape there without endangering Taekwoon’s family.

What could they do?

“Well, this just won’t do at all!” A voice shouted over all the commotion. The volley of arrows stopped and Taekwoon dropped his shield. Perched precariously on a nearby streetlight, stood another servant. Immediately, Taekwoon recognized the aura of magical energy coming from the man. It was the same kind of energy that they had sensed after Caster’s attack. An energy like Sanghyuk’s, and now that Taekwoon got the full force of it, older and possibly even stronger.

The man stood casually, as if his life wasn’t in danger at all stepping in to a battle with a servant and two other mages. The way he was dressed only furthered the uncaring attitude the servant exuded: a sleek, black, pin-stiped, three-piece suit with a red undershirt; Taekwoon could see the shine in the man’s oxfords from where he stood some ways away. The only indication that this very well-dressed man was actually something inhuman was the long, six-foot scythe he carried, blade pointed towards the ground, held casually in his right hand as if it were only a stick.

“Who the hell are you?” The Archer yelled, pulling back another golden arrow, but this time, it was directed at the new comer.

“Berserker class servant, nice to meet you.” The man took a deep bow, not a single strand of his styled brown hair falling out of place. “I’m afraid I’m here to make sure my friend, here, is safe.”

He gestured towards Taekwoon; he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why this servant would be sent to protect him.

“I just don’t think it’s fair of you to attack a master without a servant,” he finished.

“That’s the Berserker class?” Taekwoon asked Sanghyuk. “The way you phrased it made them seem like battle crazy monsters.”

“They are… he just happens to be an exception,” Sanghyuk whispered back.

“Yeah? And why the hell do you care what I do?” Baekhyun, as Chanyeol had called him earlier, called back.

“I don’t… as long as it doesn’t involve someone I’m allied with.”

It clicked in Taekwoon’s mind now. Hongbin. That servant must be Hongbin’s, or at least someone’s in Hongbin’s alliance. Why was that kid doing this? Did he want Taekwoon that badly?

“Maybe you should teach this guy how to protect himself,” the servant shouted back, letting loose three arrows directed at the newcomer. “Because I think he’s got a death wish.” He finished, firing another couple arrows.

The Berserker servant easily avoided all the projectiles, jumping off his streetlight perch just in time to be missed by all the golden bolts. He hit the ground running, his scythe rounded up behind him, ready to strike when he got close enough. The Archer continued to let loose arrows, while the other gained ground on him, easily deflecting what came too close with the large blade of his scythe.

Taekwoon watched the spectacle in awe, completely forgetting that he was in the middle of a war zone until he felt a tug at his arm. Turning around, he was met with the worried face of Hongbin, still wearing four layers of jackets.

“Come on, we have to get out of here before Archer notices,” he told Taekwoon, pulling him towards the library. Sanghyuk started to follow, which gained him a confused look from Hongbin.

“He’s a friend… he knows about everything, it’s okay,” Taekwoon attempted to convince. Hongbin looked a bit skeptical but gave up when he realized he didn’t have much of a choice if he wanted Taekwoon to follow him.

“Fine, he can come too,” Hongbin conceded and the three of them escaped in to the library just as the ground seemed to shake from the impact of one of Archer’s explosive arrows. He was thoroughly distracted by Berserker… they could easily escape now.

“Why are you helping me?” Taekwoon asked as Hongbin continued to pull him along through the maze of bookshelves.

“I told you, I want to combine forces. There’s already three of us, and one more would make us the majority. We could overwhelm the other masters,” Hongbin told him. “Your friend could get protection too, since he’s been associated with you now.”

“Believe me, he doesn’t need protecting,” Taekwoon said. Sanghyuk snorted out a laugh.

“Alright sure, let’s say that’s true. You still need a servant and some help learning magic, right?” Hongbin stopped to turn around and look at Taekwoon.

“How do you even know that? And how do you know I don’t have a servant?”

An ear-shattering ringing echoed around the room, causing all of them to immediately clutch at their ears as the entire building shook from some sort of impact. It seemed Berserker had finally reached Archer.

“Look, we could talk about this back at my apartment. We don’t have much time before Jaehwan accidentally blows the place up. Please, could you just come with me?” Hongbin seemed to turn desperate, literally begging for Taekwoon to come with him.

“Fine, but I’m not agreeing to anything just yet. And I’m only coming if Sanghyuk can come too.”

“Sure whatever, let’s just get out of here. Jaehwan is a Berserker class, it’s only a matter of time before he loses it completely and who knows what that Archer is capable of,” Hongbin said, beginning to literally sprint towards the front exit of the building. Guess it really was serious.

Taekwoon looked at Sanghyuk who only shrugged, equally as confused on what to do as Taekwoon was. At least if the situation turned sour, he’d have Sanghyuk to back him up against whatever may lie in wait.

They sprinted after Hongbin, exiting the library and catching up to where the teenager stood frozen at the entrance. He looked out down the practically deserted street, deserted except for one man.

“It seems like all the commotion Archer caused served as a calling card for literally all the other servants,” Hongbin said, pointing towards the man standing a little way down the road.

“Wonderful,” Taekwoon sighed. He squinted to look at the man. Unlike the other two, the man down the road was dressed in all black, tight leather armor. His blinding white hair practically glowed in the bright sunlight. But none of that was what worried Taekwoon; what worried Taekwoon was the long, curved sword- akin to a katana- that was placed in the ground in front of him. He stood there, both wrists resting on top of the blade that was stuck in the ground.

Taekwoon remembered what Sanghyuk had said about the Saber class of servants: They were the most powerful out of all the seven. And judging by the sword the servant held… they had just run in to him.

“Finally, some opponents approach me,” the servant called out. “Which one of you has a servant brave enough to challenge the greatest swordsman the world has ever seen?”

Hongbin nervously ran a hand through his hair, looking positively distressed.

“This is really not good… My servant can’t go up against a Saber,” Hongbin began to mumble. Taekwoon wondered what servant Hongbin had, there weren’t very many choices left. “A Caster has no chance against a Saber and you don’t have a servant… Fuck.”

“Hold on a second,” Taekwoon said, moving to stand in front of Hongbin so he could be face to face with the teenager. “You’re Caster’s master? The servant that attacked me last night?”

Hongbin’s expression went from panicked to absolutely grave. He seemed to search for any sort of excuse, a few strangled, nonsensical words coming from his mouth.

“I didn’t… I wasn’t…” He started, trying to no avail to find the words to explain himself. “I didn’t want Caster to try and kill you, but he tried anyway, he said you insulted me. Can we please talk about this later? We really have a problem here with this Saber servant.”

Hongbin looked so pleading… Taekwoon caved; he never could turn down children, even if Hongbin wasn’t quite that young. He wasn’t happy in the least bit but Hongbin had stopped Caster from killing him… and the Saber servant was beginning to get impatient.

“Are you done talking? I came here for a fight, but I can settle for merciless slaughter if that’s what you’d all prefer,” the servant mocked, pulling his sword out of the ground and pointing it at the three of them.

“Fuck, if only you had your servant, we might have a chance.”

Taekwoon looked to Sanghyuk, who nodded in understanding. It seemed they really didn’t have much of a choice anymore if they wanted to survive this. Taekwoon couldn’t take on a weapon based opponent, not without knowing how to create his own weapons first. They couldn’t stay on the downlow any longer under these circumstances.

“Who said I don’t have a servant?” Taekwoon asked. Hongbin looked at him, completely incredulous.

“What are you talking about?” Hongbin asked. “If you had a servant, I’d be able to sense him.”

“I thought I’d never get the chance to fight,” Sanghyuk said, placing a hand on Hongbin’s shoulder as he passed him. The teenager looked up at him, confusion clearly written across his face.

“What? But I thought… he doesn’t have any auras. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Sanghyuk stepped in front of Taekwoon, shedding his coat so he stood in only a T-shirt and jeans. Swiping his right hand left across his body, his lance spun in to existence, twirling in the air in front of him once before he caught it in his right hand. He brought it back around so that the two prongs pointed towards the ground. He didn’t even bother transforming any further, apparently no armor was necessary.

“You thought wrong, kid. Servant class Lancer at your service.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long update time, finals are a killer and I haven't had much time. But I do now! Merry Christmas if that's your thing, otherwise Happy Holidays!
> 
> All comments appreciated 
> 
> Thanks for reading


	4. Chapter 4

Sanghyuk looked positively ecstatic as he stood between Taekwoon and the Saber servant down the road. From the looks of it, Taekwoon guessed his servant had been anxious to battle. He felt a little guilty denying him that pleasure for so long. Sanghyuk relaxed his battle stance, spinning his lance so it was in his right hand and braced behind his back.

“Tell me swordsman,” he called out to the opposing servant. “Do you think you can give me a challenge before I kill you?”

“I should be asking you that question, Lancer. How serious of an opponent can you be without any armor?” Saber met Sanghyuk’s challenge with another quip. They were toying with each other, purposefully trying to make the other angry enough to make the first move. The same kind of tactic Taekwoon had used on Hongbin’s servant the other night.

Taekwoon wasn’t worried about Sanghyuk caving first. What did worry him was his servant’s blatant disregard for personal safety. Why the hell hadn’t he transformed completely?

“You jest, Saber,” Sanghyuk laughed, twirling his lance with his hand a few times casually, showboating his abilities a little more. “I was only leveling the playing field, but I’m afraid that even without armor, you’re still no match for me. I could take you on with my eyes closed!”

Sanghyuk had really done it now. With every word that he spoke, the Saber’s expression turned darker and darker.

“I will make you eat those words, Lancer, if you have anything left by the time I’ve finished you off!”

Saber launched himself forward, straight at Sanghyuk, very clearly blinded by his anger. Sanghyuk smirked, obviously about to have the time of his life, before racing to meet the swordsman head on.

Their weapons clashed with a flash and a piercing ring. Saber swung his sword down, aiming for Sanghyuk’s shoulder. Not missing a beat, Sanghyuk caught the swordsman’s blade between the two prongs of his bident and, using the servant’s momentum against him, directed the blade straight into the ground while Sanghyuk dodged to the left. Saber’s eyes widened in fear as Sanghyuk then quickly swung his lance around to take a swipe at his opponent’s head.

Saber only just barely jumped out of reach of Sanghyuk’s lance, abandoning his sword lodged in the asphalt of the street.

“You’re quicker than you look,” the Saber servant gave. “For someone so large.”

Sanghyuk laughed at that, righting his fighting stance and readying his weapon for the next attack.

“It’s all muscle,” Sanghyuk quipped right back. Taekwoon wondered if it was normal for people trying to kill each other to exchange friendly banter while trying to do so. He didn’t think so.

“I suppose that’s why you opted not to wear any armor,” the Saber continued. “To be able to match me in speed.” His sword disappeared from where it was stuck in the ground and materialized back in his hand.

“You catch on quick,” Sanghyuk agreed. “But I also happen to know that sword of yours would just go straight through whatever kind of armor I might have been wearing.”

The swordsman launched himself at Sanghyuk again, running at him in full force. Careful not to get his sword trapped by Sanghyuk’s two-pronged lance again, he swung from the left, hoping to catch his opponent off guard.

He wasn’t so lucky. Sanghyuk blocked his attack with the middle of his lance as if it were nothing. Saber didn’t back off, however.

“And how would you come to make such an assumption?” The swordsman asked, pressing against Sanghyuk’s lance with as much force as he could muster.

“Because my lance does the same thing!” Sanghyuk said through gritted teeth, pushing the Saber servant off him and twirling his lance around to take another swipe at his opponent.

Taekwoon watched in amazement as Sanghyuk’s lance slid straight through the leather armor covering Saber’s left side. It left no gash in the armor, however, as if Saber’s armor wasn’t even there. The swordsman was too far from the pronged weapon for any major damage to be done, but it was enough to cause alarm if it wasn’t dealt with; a growing dark spot on the servant’s coverings told everyone that skin had been pierced.

If it hurt, the Saber didn’t let anything show. Taekwoon thought that Saber’s master must be somewhere nearby, ready to heal whatever injuries his servant might incur.

“I see,” the servant said, placing his hand on the bloodspot and pulling it away to see his palm covered in blood. “How annoying.”

“I thought you were looking for a challenge!” Sanghyuk taunted, throwing his arms out to the side; a gesture that screamed overconfidence, except Taekwoon knew his servant had the talent to back up his cocky attitude. He just hoped it didn’t cloud his judgement.

Saber gripped his sword a little tighter, anger clearly boiling through to the surface. The ground cracked under his feet, splitting open from the sheer force of the servant standing there.

“You want a challenge, Lancer? I’ll show you a challenge!”

A powerful shockwave exploded outwards from the Saber; Taekwoon struggled to stand through the force, Hongbin fell over all together. Flames, colored a deep, unnatural red, erupted from the now gigantic spiderweb of cracks below the servant’s feet, engulfing his entire figure. Taekwoon felt the power then, the raw emotion, the sheer, unbridled anger that poured from the swordsman. Sanghyuk felt it too, if the way his grip tighten on his own weapon was any indication.

“Sanghyuk!” Taekwoon shouted after his servant, immediately sensing the danger he was about to be in. “You have to get out of there!”

“He’s going to use his ultimate…” Hongbin mumbled, fear clear in his voice as he stood back up. “We all have to get out of here.”

Sanghyuk glanced back at Taekwoon. He looked worried. Not for himself but for Taekwoon.

“He’s going to use his ultimate!” Taekwoon repeated, trying to warn his servant. But it had the exact opposite effect on his servant than what he intended. There was a resolve on Sanghyuk’s face that wasn’t there moments ago. He turned back around to face the flame-engulfed servant, lance held tightly in both of his hands as he prepared for the onslaught.

“That’s an awful lot of show,” Sanghyuk continued to tease. Not a single ounce of his fear was showing on the outside, his voice was as confident as ever. “Show that revealed who you are, you ought to be more careful.”

Saber laughed maniacally, an ominous sound that echoed around the deserted street. He sounded absolutely mad, like the man who had started the battle had suddenly lost his mind.

“Who cares what you think?! Yes, I’m the greatest weapons master there ever was, Ares, the God of war and bloodshed. It doesn’t matter if you know it! You’ll all be dead in a matter of minutes!”

Taekwoon could sense Sanghyuk’s annoyance at such a statement, but Taekwoon didn’t have the chance to call Sanghyuk off. Ares, as the Saber servant named himself, slashed his sword diagonally with a big sweeping motion, sending a burst of fire billowing straight towards Sanghyuk. Taekwoon’s servant blocked the flames with a twirl of his bident; but his lance went flying from his hands; the metal burning his hands as the flames heated it up.

“Sanghyuk!” Taekwoon cried again, taking a step to run towards his servant. Hongbin stopped him, grabbing his arm and holding him in place.

“Are you crazy? Ares isn’t some third-rate god you can run at like Zelos!”

“We need to get out of here,” Taekwoon said, worriedly running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah no shit!” Hongbin scoffed. “But where are we going to go?”

The swordsman laughed again, the sound echoing off every building, seeming to surround them as he wound up for another attack.

“Say goodbye, Lacer.”

Without his weapon, Sanghyuk was completely defenseless, completely at the mercy of Ares’ flames.

But before Saber got the chance to finish his attack, four explosions hit, one right after the other, right at the enemy’s feet.

The flames died instantly as Ares jumped away from whatever projectiles were being flung at him. Four more, what Taekwoon identified as nasty looking daggers, went flying at the swordsman.

Ares dodged them but just barely, jumping away and looking furiously up at the source of the intrusion.

Following the swordsman’s line of sight, Taekwoon saw yet another servant, perched on the edge of a nearby roof. The servant was clad in all black, wearing skin-tight armor and a cape slung over his left shoulder and around his back. A hood hid his face from view. Taekwoon was hit with a sudden feeling of déjà vu; the new servant was dressed exactly like Sanghyuk had been the first night he had be summoned, he even had the same type of dagger that Sanghyuk had hanging from his belt. Albeit Sanghyuk’s armor was much flashier, but the same style all the same. The most notable difference between the two; however, were the large, black feather wings arched above him.

When Taekwoon cued in to the servant’s magical aura, to get a read on the newcomer, he was surprised to find even the servant’s aura was similar to that of Sanghyuk’s. Dark, foreboding terror; noticeably weaker and less overwhelming but the same. And if the ecstatic smile that spread across Sanghyuk’s face at the sight of the servant was anything to go by, Sanghyuk recognized him.

“Assassin,” Hongbin whispered, sounding like he didn’t believe what he saw. “I told him not to come if a fight broke out.”

“A friend of yours?” Taekwoon asked, Hongbin nodded as another series of daggers were hurled at the Saber servant. The impact of the daggers seemed to shock Hongbin out of whatever terrified stupor he had been in for the duration of the battle between servants.

“Come on, we need to get out of here before Saber realizes he’s being distracted,” Hongbin said, beginning to sprint down the street, away from the battle.

Looking towards Sanghyuk, his servant nodded in understanding before they both took off after Hongbin. Sanghyuk picked up his bident as he went, taking one last look at the Assassin class servant. Taekwoon made a mental note to ask him about that later.

Hongbin was fast; he must’ve been using a spell to make his getaway faster. Taekwoon casted the same kind of spell over himself to catch up; he was surprised to find that Sanghyuk was easily able to keep up, staying a few feet behind his master. He wondered, fleetingly, how fast his servant could actually move.

Without so much as a warning, Hongbin turned to the left, ducking into a small side street suddenly. Taekwoon skidded on his right foot a couple times, trying to turn as fast as he could without falling over or losing momentum. He made the turn, Sanghyuk followed after him as if it were nothing, laughing at Taekwoon’s display.

“Is this really the time to be laughing at me?” He called back to Sanghyuk.

“Probably not but that was just too damn adorable to ignore,” Sanghyuk said, continuing to laugh. Taekwoon shook his head, deciding to focus on running instead of Sanghyuk’s melodious laughter, grateful for the excuse of running ot hide the blush that he knew was on his face.

Hongbin took another left up ahead, down an alleyway that was blocked at the end by a fence. No outlet.

Taekwoon slid to a halt, watching in wonder as Hongbin launched himself on top of a large dumpster and then over the fence that blocked his path. No hesitation. No loss of momentum.

“What even is this kid…” Taekwoon scoffed. But he didn’t have time to reminisce about Hongbin’s inhuman abilities. Sanghyuk came up behind him, and didn’t stop. With no warning, Taekwoon’s feet left the ground as Sanghyuk easily scooped him up into his arms. Taekwoon squeaked indignantly despite himself, gripping on to his servant’s neck like his life depended on it… which, it probably did.

“Hold on,” Sanghyuk warned a bit too late, vaulting over the fence without the aid of the dumpster at all. He landed easily on the other side, sprinting after Hongbin with a practiced grace. They bounded around the corner, taking a right at the next street after Hongbin. Then, after another block, the three of them slowed to a stop. Hongbin bent over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily while Sanghyuk carefully placed Taekwoon on the ground.

“A bit of a warning next time you decide to do something like that,” Taekwoon chastised between gulps for air as he too tried to catch his breath.

“There wasn’t any time,” Sanghyuk laughed, hardly looking affected by the five-block sprint they just performed. “It wasn’t like I was going to hurt you.”

Taekwoon was especially glad now, that he had the excuse of running to hide his blushing face. Sanghyuk was strong… And handsome… it wasn’t Taekwoon’s fault he was attracted to strong, handsome men. He rolled his eyes at Sanghyuk’s words to further hide his embarrassment.

“I think…” Hongbin started, standing upright and straightening out his many layers of jackets. “I think we’re far enough away to stop running now… my apartment’s just over there.” He finished, pointing to a small, slightly run-down looking apartment complex just down the street.

“What about Assassin and Berserker?” Taekwoon asked, following after Hongbin as he slowly started walking towards the building he had pointed out.

“There’s no way Saber can follow after Hyungwon, the guy can fly. And Jaehwan’s battle crazy, not stupid. He knows when to retreat if he’s in trouble,” Hongbin answered. Taekwoon was slightly confused by the use of regular names but he figured he’d find out eventually who was who anyway. Taekwoon only nodded in understanding, looking back at Sanghyuk for some sort of comfort that they were doing the right thing. His servant only shrugged, equally as unsure.

They followed Hongbin into the shabby apartment building. Taking the sketchiest elevator Taekwoon had ever ridden in, they were deposited on the fifth floor.

“I apologize for the mess,” Hongbin said, unlocking door number 520 and ushering them all inside. “I haven’t had much of a chance to clean after summoning my servant… that made quite the mess.”

Taekwoon waved it off as he walked inside the small room with Sanghyuk following close behind. He couldn’t really judge someone on how messy their living space was, especially with the way his always looked.

Taekwoon surveyed the apartment. It wasn’t very big nor was it as messy as Hongbin’s warning might have suggested. There was a small kitchenette attached to a decently sized living room that hardly had any furniture. Every inch of countertop space that the small kitchen had to offer was covered in ingredients and spell books and items necessary to perform high level magic; Taekwoon doubted the kitchen was ever used to make food. There were two small couches in the living room and a table between the two. A TV sat on a rickety-looking cabinet, with a couple of game systems hooked up to it. A closed door stood to the left of the TV, presumably leading to Hongbin’s bedroom. And that’s all there was to the room; granted it did look a lot better than the rest of the complex.

The only sign of mess was where Hongbin had drawn a summoning circle on the hardwood floors of the kitchen; half-melted candles still sat at each point and a few stray splatters of dried blood were scattered around the floor. There was only one thing that really seemed out of place to Taekwoon, though.

“Where are your parents?” He asked. Hongbin froze on his way to close his apartment door.

“Dead,” Hongbin said after a period of silence. “Along with the rest of my family.” The teenager began taking off his many jackets, hanging them up neatly on their own hooks by the door. Taekwoon regretted asking but before he could begin to apologize, Hongbin began to speak again. “But that’s not important right now.”

“And what is important?” Taekwoon asked.

“How the hell you were able to hide a servant like that…” Hongbin pointed at Sanghyuk for effect, who looked a little startled to be addressed so suddenly. “From me.”

“And me,” another voice chimed in as a series of purple specks solidified into a human being behind Hongbin. The man was shorter than everyone in the room yet held himself with a confidence that demanded respect. His skin was a light tan, his hair a chocolate brown and his eyes an unnatural magenta. He was dressed casually but Taekwoon wasn’t fooled. He knew who this was; and if the way Sanghyuk stepped closer to his master was anything to go by, Sanghyuk knew too.

“Sanghyuk, was it?” Hongbin asked, Sanghyuk nodded. “Even now, I’m getting literally nothing from him. This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Before I answer that,” Sanghyuk spoke up. “Introduce us to your friend.” He nodded towards Caster.

Hongbin cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

“This is Zelos, a Caster type servant as you found out last night…” Hongbin trailed off, looking incredibly guilty as his eyes roamed everywhere besides Taekwoon and Sanghyuk.

“But for the sake of not revealing my identity to anyone else, please call me Hakyeon,” the servant announced, taking a dramatic bow to finish introducing himself.

“You were supposed to stay hidden,” Hongbin mumbled.

“Yeah and I thought I should apologize for what happened last night myself. It wasn’t your fault anyway,” Hakyeon argued back. Hongbin didn’t say anything, looking down at the ground in embarrassment.

“I’m listening,” Taekwoon said, crossing his arms.

“It was my fault for letting my emotions get the better of me. Hongbin did not, and I repeat did NOT, instruct me to kill you. Look, the kid even wasted a command spell to save you.” Hakyeon grabbed Hongbin’s wrist and showed Taekwoon the three red marks on Hongbin’s hand… Except, upon further inspection, one of the magical seals was significantly more faded than the other two.

“He’s a good kid,” Hakyeon continued. “You can trust him… if not me, then at the very least him.”

Taekwoon looked from the serious expression Hakyeon wore to the absolutely embarrassed one on Hongbin’s face. He sighed deeply, looking at Sanghyuk who seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. Besides, had Hakyeon actually continued his attack the other night, it wouldn’t have been Taekwoon who died.

“I accept your apology, but we’re not joining this alliance thing until we meet everyone else.”

Hakyeon broke into a bright smile and Hongbin visibly relaxed.

“That’s understandable, they should be here soon,” Hongbin said. “But until then, we can sit if you want… we did just run all the way over here.”

Taekwoon nodded. Now that the adrenaline was starting to fade, he was beginning to feel absolutely exhausted. He let Sanghyuk lead him to one of the couches. His servant sat next to him, an arm extended behind him on the edge of the couch in a protective manner. Hongbin and Hakyeon sat down on the other couch.

“So now would you mind explaining why we can’t sense any sort of magical energy from that attractive hunk of manservant over there,” Hakyeon asked once they were all settled down.

Sanghyuk laughed loudly at the other servant’s words.

“If you knew who I really was you’d throw yourself in to the deepest realms of the Underworld for saying that.”

“Oh? Care to enlighten me on who you are then? Or should I just take a peek into your mind to see for myself?” Hakyeon asked, meeting Sanghyuk’s challenge head on.

“I’d really like to see you try. It’s a dark place up there, you might get lost.” Sanghyuk tapped his temple for added effect.

“And I wouldn’t do that if you want us to team up with you,” Taekwoon added in. “We’ll eventually have to turn against each other, so I’d rather not give away our most important secret. Alliance or not.”

“You make a fair point, you don’t have to tell us Sanghyuk’s identity,” Hongbin said, sending a glare towards his servant. A warning to not be so hostile; Hakyeon held his hands up in surrender.

“That’s a step in the right direction,” Sanghyuk joked. “The reason you can’t detect me, why no one but my Master can, is because of who I am. Since I can’t tell you that, you’re just going to have to trust that answer. But I am actually a servant and the Lancer for this war.”

Hakyeon crossed his arms, clearly unsatisfied with the answer Sanghyuk gave them. Taekwoon couldn’t think of a way to explain Sanghyuk’s ability without giving away the fact that he was Hades, so Hakyeon and Hongbin would just have to deal.

Thankfully, before any more questions could be thrown at them, a knock sounded at the front door before a boy, who looked to be the same age as Hongbin, bounded into the room, yelling loudly.

“Hongbin! Are you alright? I saw Hyungwon had shown up along with that Saber servant, but I couldn’t find where you went!” The boy shouted, frantically looking around the room before finally settling in on Hongbin.

Another man came running into the room, blindly crashing against the first and sending them both to the floor.

“Yah! What were you standing in the doorway for, stupid?!” the second man shouted, standing up and straightening out his suit.

“What were you doing running through the door like a mad man?!” The first shouted right back, still laying on the ground.

Hongbin sighed. “Why did he even bother knocking if he was just going to barge in anyway?”

“What goes through that boy’s head will forever be a mystery that I don’t care enough to ever solve,” Hakyeon agreed, holding the bridge of his nose.

Hongbin gestured half-heartedly to the arguing pair: “The one on the ground is Wonsik and the other is his servant Jaehwan. Yah! Losers, stop arguing and close the damn door. We have guests.”

Wonsik picked himself off the floor, looking curiously over at Taekwoon and Sanghyuk.

“Oh, these are the two we saw the night you attacked that guy,” Wonsik said slowly. “Kim Wonsik, conjuration specialist.”

The servant dressed like a fortune five hundred business man stepped in front of Wonsik, proclaiming loudly:

“And I’m his servant, Jaehwan of the Berserker class!” He looked rather proud of himself at such a proclamation. “The man who saved your life at the library! Now who are you?”

Taekwoon cleared his throat, feeling rather uncomfortable with all the attention turned so suddenly on him. But before he got the chance to answer, Hongbin’s front door came flying open again as two more people entered the room in a rush. The shorter of the two slammed the door shut, bracing himself against it and breathing hard. The other collapsed to the ground, unmoving as a small puddle of blood began to pool underneath his side.

“Hyungwon,” Hongbin exclaimed in surprise, instantly jumping up from the couch and rushing over to the pair. Jaehwan and Wonsik moved out of the way as Hongbin came forward. “What happened, Hoseok?”

The boy bracing himself against the door shook his head, looking close to tears as he said: “That Saber… I don’t know what happened… he was so fast… Hyungwon got hit…”

Through the broken sentences, Taekwoon was able to piece together what happened. It seemed Saber was an enemy to be reckoned with.

“Why didn’t you heal him?” Hongbin asked, kneeling beside the shivering servant on the floor. Taekwoon and Sanghyuk stood up as well; Taekwoon moved to kneel next to the servant opposite Hongbin, Sanghyuk hovering respectfully behind him.

“I did…” Hoseok said hopelessly. “I did, it should have worked… Why didn’t my spell work?”

“Come on, let’s sit down,” Wonsik grabbed ahold of Hoseok’s arm, pulling him away from the door before he worked himself into a panic attack. “He’ll be fine.”

Hoseok continued to choke out broken sentences stating his extreme worry but Taekwoon ignored them, cueing in to the instructions Hongbin was giving him.

“Help me get him on his back,” Hongbin said, beginning to pull the man on his back as carefully as he could. Taekwoon helped, noting the alarming amount of blood that covered the man’s clothes.

“Do you know any healing spells?” Hongbin asked. “Because we’re going to need a strong spell if even Hoseok wasn’t able to heal the wound.”

Taekwoon nodded even though he hadn’t the slightest idea how to cast a healing spell. He closed his eyes and placed his hands over the long gash across the servant’s abdomen. It was deep; no wonder a basic healing spell didn’t help in the slightest. Remembering what Sanghyuk had told him about his magic crest and his circuits, Taekwoon imagined the wound healing underneath his hands. He felt a tingling go up his arm and a familiar tugging in his stomach as his crest activated. He didn’t know how long he kept the spell going, but when he let go, the servant’s wound was healing. Not perfect, since the man had lost an insane amount of blood, but he was going to be okay. Hongbin look utterly stunned.

“How did you do that?” Hongbin whispered. Taekwoon only shrugged, feeling slightly light-headed.

“Do what?” Hoseok asked shakily, standing up from where Wonsik had led him to the couch. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, let’s get him on the bed,” Hongbin said, snapping out of his daze.

When Hyungwon, or the Assassin class servant as Taekwoon learned shortly after, was placed safely in Hongbin’s bedroom to rest, the remaining seven sat, or stood in Sanghyuk’s case, in the living room. He was introduced to Shin Hoseok, a proclaimed “restoration specialist”.

“Why are you here?” Hoseok asked, his eyes were puffy and red from crying. “I mean, I’m happy you are, you saved his life and all, but why?”

“This is the guy I told you about,” Hongbin spoke up.

“The really strong one without a servant?” Hoseok asked, Hongbin nodded. Taekwoon cleared his throat.

“My name’s Taekwoon… and my servant.” He pointed to the man standing behind him, Sanghyuk waved. “Sanghyuk, of the Lancer class.”

Both Wonsik and Hoseok looked surprised and a little confused.

“You mean he’s a servant?” Wonsik asked, pointing to where Sanghyuk stood behind Taekwoon.

“We’ve been through this,” Hakyeon sighed, clearly getting impatient with everything.

“But it doesn’t matter anyway. Sanghyuk is a servant, and Taekwoon his master,” Hongbin explained. “I saw him fight and we’ve all just seen what Taekwoon is capable of.”

“And in turn, Taekwoon has seen what we’ve got… All that’s left is for him to agree to join us…” Hakyeon finished.

“How did you all meet?” Taekwoon asked first. He wanted to know as much as he could about his potential allies and if they were close to each other outside of this war. Something like that wouldn’t bode well for him when the four of them were all that was left.

The three of teenagers looked rather taken aback by the question, looking at each other, silently asking if they should answer such a question.

“We all go to the same high school…” Hongbin started.

“We’re the only mages that go there so we kind of just fell together,” Hoseok said, voice cracking from all the crying he had been doing.

“We play a lot of video games mainly…” Wonsik finished and they all nodded as if everything they just said summed up their entire relationship perfectly.

Taekwoon was able to put everything together, though. They were all friends outside of this war, they just didn’t want to say that in case it scared Taekwoon away. He looked from Hoseok’s puffy, red eyes; to the bright smile Wonsik wore as Jaehwan messed with his hair with a disgusted look on his face; to the expectant and hopeful look Hakyeon and Hongbin wore. Disregarding the servants, Taekwoon was in a room full of teenagers… he felt the sudden urge to protect every single one of them, despite the fact that he hadn’t met any of them before today.

“Fine,” Taekwoon agreed. “I’ll join you.”

Hongbin broke into a bright smile.

“I was really hoping you’d agree…” Hongbin said, excitement barely contained. “So now we need to discuss what to do.”

“Saber should be our first priority,” Hoseok mumbled, clutching a pillow close to his chest.

“I think we can all agree with that but let’s not forget about Archer. He was able to last a lot longer than I expected against me,” Jaehwan spoke up. “And his master seemed to know who Taekwoon was.”

“Are you saying he’s a bigger threat than Saber?” Hakyeon asked.

“He could attack Taekwoon at any time if he knows where he lives,” Wonsik answered.

“Then we should take Archer out first and then go for Saber,” Hongbin agreed.

“What about Rider? Does anyone even know where he is?” Hakyeon asked.

“Hyungwon and I haven’t been able to find him,” Hoseok said, sniffling slightly.

“How strange…”

“Regardless, we have a rough idea about what to do,” Hongbin decided. “Once Hyungwon gets better we can solidify exactly what to do. Until then, we should all rest… this day ended up a lot crazier than I expected.”

“Good idea,” everyone agreed.

There wasn’t much else to discuss with one member down, so the seven of them called it a night. On the walk back to the manor, Taekwoon mulled over everything that had happened during the day.

And what a day it was.

He almost died four different times in the last two days; three of which occurred today. Without Hongbin and his friends, he and Sanghyuk definitely wouldn’t be walking home that night. He worried about what the future would hold if all the other servants were so strong. Sanghyuk was extremely powerful, the only issue would be his servant’s overconfidence in his abilities. Then there were also the problems that would inevitably occur within his alliance. They’d all turn on each other eventually and Taekwoon had a sneaking suspicion that he would be the first target between the other three. He wasn’t sure how he would be able to deal with that; especially since they were all children…

“Are you sure about all this?” Sanghyuk asked as they walked through the deserted streets of the city. Hongbin lived in a particularly sketchy part of town so no one was around. The two of them felt pretty safe talking about everything out in the open as they slowly made their way back home.

“No, but they’re just kids…” Taekwoon responded.

“Yeah, kids in a war to the death.”

“Exactly my point.”

“You’re too kind for your own good.”

Taekwoon rolled his eyes. Was it really so bad that he wanted to protect a group of children in this deadly situation? Sure, they would try to kill him at some point but until then he felt obligated to help them achieve their goals.

A thought came to Taekwoon’s mind, then.

“Sanghyuk?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you in this war?”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re all here because they have a wish to be granted. Hongbin, Hoseok, and Wonsik; along with their servants…”

“You wish to know mine?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought that would be obvious, seeing as you know who I am.” His servant laughed coldly. “Acceptance… The respect I deserve yet never got…”

“A place on Mount Olympus.”

“You got me.”

Taekwoon thought about what he would wish for if he won… he hadn’t the slightest idea. He felt it almost unfair to the other participants and to Sanghyuk that he was in this war for no good reason. That if he won, he’d be taking away a possibly life-saving wish from someone who needed it. But if he didn’t win for that exact reason, he’d be taking away Sanghyuk’s chance at happiness.

What was he going to do?

“What are you thinking about over there that has got you so worked up?” Sanghyuk laughed, snapping Taekwoon out of his worried thoughts.

“Nothing.”

“Well I know that’s not true,” Sanghyuk said. “If you’re worried about winning, then you should stop. In a war like this, you have to take it one step at a time.”

“I’m more worried about what to do if we win… I feel like a cheat, not having a real reason for being in this war other than I got chosen.” Taekwoon admitted.

Sanghyuk stopped walking, pulling Taekwoon to a halt along with him.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Sanghyuk moved to stand in front of Taekwoon. He didn’t say anything in response, refusing to look up at his servant. “You were chosen by the Holy Grail, just like all of them. It doesn’t pick people who don’t have something worth fighting for, just because you don’t know it yet doesn’t mean it’s not there. _When_ we win, I have absolutely no doubt you’ll know what to do.”

Taekwoon thought for a minute, really letting Sanghyuk’s words sink in, wanting desperately to believe them. He nodded in understanding, looking up at Sanghyuk who smiled down at him.

“Let’s go home then.”

He nodded again, following his servant home with a new-found confidence in himself and their team. He wanted to win, if not for himself then for the man who had helped him get this far in the battle, for the man who had been wronged his entire existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> All comments appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

The very next day was very slow, and for once, neither Sanghyuk nor Taekwoon could complain. After almost dying a total of five times since Taekwoon summoned his servant, it was nice to have a normal day. They both knew the peace wouldn’t last long. In fact, the longer the peace lasted the more worried the both of them became. It was only a matter of time before they were attacked again, but they would enjoy whatever downtime they were given.

Taekwoon’s lectures went by without a problem. Neither of them could detect any mages throughout the classes, but after what Hongbin had told him about cloaking spells, he figured that they were all just hiding.

Sanghyuk followed him around in physical form all day. If anyone noticed that he wasn’t actually a student they had ever seen before, no one said anything, including the two professors that taught the lectures Taekwoon had attended. The servant had been pretty worried that his presence would prove to be a problem, but after the first lecture he calmed down a bit. Taekwoon found it surprising that Sanghyuk hadn’t once complained about his boredom. He had been entirely too quiet throughout the day as well, as if something were bothering him.

Taekwoon didn’t think much of it at first, but nearing the end of his shift at the library with still hardly any rambling rants from the familiar was starting to worry Taekwoon.

“What’s wrong?” Taekwoon finally caved. He had fifteen minutes of his shift left. Fifteen minutes till midnight and not a word from his servant in the past hour.

Sanghyuk visibly snapped out of his thoughts, whipping his head up from the book he had been staring at for the past few hours. He looked confusedly up at Taekwoon.

“What do you mean?” He asked carefully.

Taekwoon looked at him for a moment with a scrutinizing gaze. Sanghyuk fidgeted under it.

“You’ve been quiet all day,” Taekwoon answered, leaning against the front desk and crossing his arms.

Sanghyuk closed his book, sighing quietly and shifting in his chair.

“And that led you to believe something was wrong?” Sanghyuk teased, smiling a rather mischievous smile. Taekwoon scoffed, rolling his eyes and looking away.

“Usually you talk my ear off,” Taekwoon said, feeling slightly embarrassed for even asking, but he had to know if something was bothering his partner.

“Watching me that much, are you?” He continued to tease, seemingly avoiding the question at all costs.

“So what if I am?” Taekwoon snapped back.

Sanghyuk laughed, mumbling ‘cute’ under his breath before standing up from his chair.

“Can’t you just answer the question?” He mumbled, refusing to look up at Sanghyuk in case he would notice how embarrassed he felt.

“I’ve…” Sanghyuk stopped, collecting his thoughts and carefully deciding on how to phrase what he was feeling. “I’ve just been worried, is all.”

“Worried?” Taekwoon mirrored. He understood being worried. The uneventful day worried him more than the near-death experiences of the days prior, in all honesty. But worried to the point of silence seemed a bit extreme.

“Well yeah… I think it would be stupid not to be worried,” Sanghyuk answered.

“What are you worrying about, then?” Taekwoon asked. He wanted to understand what his servant was thinking; they shouldn’t keep secrets from one another.

“It’s stupid…” Sanghyuk admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck. This was the first time Taekwoon had seen him actually embarrassed.

“We can’t keep secrets from one another, Sanghyuk,” Taekwoon said quietly. “You’re the one who made that rule, remember?”

Sanghyuk laughed, smiling as he looked up at Taekwoon once more.

“Yes, but that was so you didn’t get yourself killed.”

“Alright, then this is so you don’t get yourself killed,” Taekwoon fired right back. Sanghyuk looked at him, mildly surprised.

“My death wouldn’t mean anything,” Sanghyuk mumbled.

Taekwoon wanted to reach out and hit his familiar, but he didn’t think that would go over well so he held back his urge.

“It would mean losing the war,” Taekwoon started. “And it would mean losing a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Are we not?” Taekwoon asked, wishing he had just hit Sanghyuk instead. “Or do you consider our relationship to be that of business partners?”

“That’s not what I meant…”

Taekwoon crossed his arms once more, waiting for Sanghyuk to explain.

“It’s just… I’m pretty sure that’s the first time, in my centuries of existence, that anyone has ever called me their friend…”

Sanghyuk wouldn’t look up at him understandably, especially considering Taekwoon wouldn’t look at him either. What a pair they made.

“You’ve saved my life on multiple occasions, we’ve done everything together for the past four days… I don’t know what else to consider us,” Taekwoon mumbled.

“No, friend sounds good to me.” Sanghyuk decided, looking up and giving a bright smile. Taekwoon could feel the heat collecting on his face but refused to admit to himself that Sanghyuk’s smile had any sort of effect on him.

“So… are you going to tell me what you were worried about all day then?” Taekwoon asked finally after clearing his throat.

Sanghyuk’s smile faded, his expression turning serious.

“It’s about what happened yesterday,” Sanghyuk started.

“You mean when Archer attacked us?” Taekwoon asked.

“Yeah exactly… I should’ve been able to detect him. He was right there, and I didn’t notice a thing… you’ve could’ve died right then and there had his aim been just a centimeter better.”

“You’re not blaming yourself, are you? Because it’s not entirely your fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should’ve noticed something as well, and the fact that neither of us did means something else was at work. A mage with crazy magical circuits and a tier one heroic spirit didn’t even notice a servant right on top of them. Chanyeol must’ve been using a spell or a potion to keep their magic hidden from us,” Taekwoon explained. Sanghyuk considered the information quietly, mulling over every fact that could possibly point to an answer.

“Even so, I should’ve noticed something. And so today…”

“You were looking for potential attackers…” Taekwoon finished when Sanghyuk couldn’t. His servant nodded, looking embarrassed once more.

“You could’ve just told me,” Taekwoon said quietly.

“And worried you as well as me?”

“I would prefer to know what’s going on with you, just as you prefer to know what’s going on with me.”

Sanghyuk stayed quiet, looking troubled.

“What?” Taekwoon asked. He really didn’t understand why his servant was acting the way he was. Was it so hard for Sanghyuk to fathom that Taekwoon genuinely cared about his safety just as much as Sanghyuk cared for his?

“You confuse me, Master.”

Taekwoon shook his head, rolling his eyes and trying not to let his annoyance show through too much.

“Look,” he started. “I don’t care that you were the ‘bad guy’ in all the stories. Nor do I care what’s written about you in all those books you keep reading. All I care about is if you can work with me so we can win this thing, okay?”

Sanghyuk searched Taekwoon’s expression, probably looking for any tell that he was lying. He sighed deeply, before giving a shaky smile.

“I suppose that’s fair…” Sanghyuk gave in. “I guess I’ll just have to get used to someone trusting me for once.”

“Yeah you will,” Taekwoon nodded. “Now, let’s go home. I want to sleep.”

Sanghyuk nodded in agreement.

Turning off the computers and the lights, Taekwoon made for the front exit of the building, Sanghyuk followed swiftly behind him.

“Can I ask you something?” Sanghyuk asked as Taekwoon put in the passcode to lockdown the entire building.

“What? Are we playing twenty questions now?” Taekwoon teased, checking to make sure that the doors were, in fact, locked.

Sanghyuk snorted.

“It’s just a question, you ask fifty a day, so I think it’s only fair that I get to ask one everyone once in a while,” Sanghyuk responded.

Taekwoon began walking towards his home, Sanghyuk fell into step next to him easily.

“I guess that’s fair,” Taekwoon mumbled. “But you know I only ask those questions because I’m trying to figure out what to do to win this war.”

“Yes, I understand, but I still have a question for you.”

“What is it then?” Taekwoon gave in. There wasn’t any point in refusing to answer a simple question.

“You live with your family, correct? Three sisters, your mother, your father, and your grandmother.”

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Since I’ve been with you… four days now?” Sanghyuk continued, Taekwoon really didn’t see where this was going.

“Is there an actual question or are you just going to keep making observations?” Taekwoon huffed.

“Why is it that I’ve never seen you interact with any of them? I know they’re home, and I’ve seen how everyone avoids everyone else in that maze of a home,” Sanghyuk finally asked.

Taekwoon laughed, it sounded bitter even to his own ears. He didn’t say anything for a moment, trying to come up with the best way to phrase the fact that he and his family weren’t exactly on speaking terms. Weren’t even on seeing-each-other terms.

“I’m sorry for asking…” Sanghyuk said after a minute of silence from Taekwoon. Obviously mistaking his silence for reluctance to answer.

“No, it’s fine,” Taekwoon said, laughing bitterly once more. “It’s just that everyone doesn’t avoid everyone else… everyone just avoids me.”

“Oh…” Sanghyuk said, sounding genuinely confused. “Why?”

“Is it important?”

“Do you not want me to know?”

Taekwoon sighed.

“I guess it really doesn’t matter.” Taekwoon buried his hands in his jean’s pockets. He had come to terms with all this five years ago when his grandfather died, and his life became the mess it is now. “It’s a kind of a long story.”

“It’s kind of a long walk home,” Sanghyuk shot back. He made a good point.

Taekwoon sighed deeply, starting to regret the ‘no secrets’ deal he had just made with his servant already.

“It started about five years ago. My grandfather was terminally ill, on his death bed. There were a few things that he wrote into his will that… literally no one agreed with. It was basically everything in his will that no one agreed with.”

“What do you mean?”

“He left everything: the estate, the fortune, the business, everything he owned to me. Not his son, not his wife, not any of my elder siblings; me.”

“So you… own the house your family lives in?” Sanghyuk asked slowly, trying to piece together everything Taekwoon was telling him.

“And the money they use, and the business that gives them the money, and just about everything in the house,” Taekwoon affirmed.

“Why?”

“Hell if I know… we never got an explanation. He didn’t live long enough to explain anything. My father was livid when he found out. The only thing that stopped him from disowning me was that he’d be kicked out of the house and cut off from all the money since everything belonged to me.”

“What about the others?”

“My mother had to listen to my father, always the dutiful wife. My sisters were just upset they were left out, as the youngest I should’ve gotten the least and yet I got everything. And my grandmother… well she’s detested me for as long as I can remember. She called me a freak once… if I remember correctly.”

Sanghyuk mulled over everything, a very thoughtful expression on his face.

“When did you realize you had magical abilities?” Sanghyuk asked, suddenly.

“Five years ago, maybe?” Taekwoon answered slowly. “Why is this important?”

“Perhaps a little bit before your grandfather died?” Sanghyuk ignored Taekwoon’s question.

“Yeah… what are you getting at?” He tried again.

“I think your grandfather was a mage,” Sanghyuk told him. “Your father wasn’t born with any magical capabilities, so the crest wasn’t passed down to him, but rather you. You, who was born with an insane amount of energy since it skipped a generation or two.”

Taekwoon thought about what this could mean. Could his grandfather have been a mage? Why would he never tell Taekwoon anything? He had to have known. Hongbin had said that he’d been able to sense a mage like Taekwoon from across the city, so his grandfather had to have known after living with him for seventeen years. To just pass along the crest before his death, leave him with the estate but no knowledge of mage craft… that just didn’t seem like a good idea if his grandfather was at all concerned with continuing the Jung’s magical bloodline. 

“Why wouldn’t he tell me anything?” Taekwoon finally asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m not sure… but what matters now is that you’re the head of the family. Whether your family members like it or not, or if they even know you’re a mage or not. That’s why you got command seals to represent your family as opposed to anyone else.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Taekwoon said. It didn’t make him feel any better for the fact that his family basically pretended like he didn’t exist.

“So, a different question,” Sanghyuk started.

“There’s more?”

“Now you know how I feel,” Sanghyuk laughed. “You told me the other day that you worked at the library because you didn’t want to rely on your parents… but the money doesn’t belong to your parents, it’s yours. So why do you work there?”

“It’s easier to avoid everyone when you’re not home while they’re awake,” Taekwoon mumbled. He felt like a child explaining his reasoning out loud, it sounded silly even to his own ears. But it was the only way to guarantee he wouldn’t have any unpleasant encounters with his family.

“I see…”

They walked quietly for a bit longer. They were almost off campus now.

“I have another question,” Sanghyuk spoke up again.

“What’s that?”

“Do you… do you not have any friends?”

“What?”

Taekwoon was taken aback. What kind of question was that?

“You literally don’t interact with anyone. Your family, people on campus… You literally only talk to people in the library because you’re required to for your job…”

“No, I don’t have anyone I consider a friend besides you. My only friend is a familiar I summoned and will disappear when this war is over. Now, are there any other questions you’d like to ask me or are you just going to keep digging through my life?” Taekwoon snapped, cutting Sanghyuk off before he could continue with his observations. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. Who was Sanghyuk to judge his lifestyle?

“Taekwoon,” Sanghyuk said quietly, halting his movements. Taekwoon stopped as well but refused to turn around. He found it strange to hear his name fall from Sanghyuk’s lips, usually the man only called him ‘Master’.

“What?” He sounded angry, even to his own ears. Sanghyuk moved to stand in front of Taekwoon. He wore a look of understanding. A look like he wanted to say a million different things…

But then his eyes widened, his soft expression turning hard and infinitely more alarmed. He bolted around Taekwoon, holding his arms out in a protective manner. Taekwoon whipped around, equally as alarmed as his servant.

He could sense it now. The magical energy that could only mean another mage and his servant.

The pair walked slowly up to them.

One was tall, meandering casually with his hands in his pockets. He reminded Taekwoon of a professor with the way he was dressed: a blue tweed jacket with leather patches over the elbows and matching brown dress pants. His brown hair was styled neatly, not a strand out of place. He looked to be about as old as Taekwoon, maybe only a year younger.

The other man was significantly shorter; the top of his head only came to the taller’s nose. Taekwoon recognized the man right away. Slight build, an air of arrogance in the way he walked, bright white hair: Ares. He wasn’t dressed in armor, but rather in street clothes. That could change quickly if they weren’t careful.

Taekwoon braced himself as Sanghyuk had, activating his crest in case they were about to be attacked.

The other mage looked alarmed at Sanghyuk and Taekwoon’s sudden defensive stance. He held up his hands, halting his movements forward. His servant stopped as well, a confident smirk on his face as he stood with his hands in his pocket.

“Woah… We’re not looking for a fight,” the mage said. “We just want to talk.”

“Why should we believe you?” Taekwoon asked in response.

“Because if I wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t have revealed our location to you,” the mage said.

Taekwoon released his magical energy, the guy made a good point. Sanghyuk however stayed on guard, standing in front of Taekwoon like a protective shield. His stance was tense, his gaze focused solely on the Saber servant.

“How do we know your servant won’t try something?” Taekwoon asked, more for Sanghyuk’s sake than his own.

The servant scoffed.

“I’ve got strict orders to keep my temper,” Ares said. “You can call him off.”

Sanghyuk looked back at Taekwoon.

“We shouldn’t trust them,” his voice echoed in Taekwoon’s head

“We don’t have to trust them to listen to them,” Taekwoon responded telepathically. Sanghyuk looked conflicted but stepped to stand next to him instead of in front of him. He was still on guard, everything about his posture said so but he would be willing to listen as long as the other pair was civil.

“Fine then,” Taekwoon said, turning back to the pair. “What do you want to talk about?”

The other mage cleared his throat, stepping closer to Taekwoon. Sanghyuk took a sharp intake of breath as if he expected an attack but the other mage only held out his hand.

“My name’s Minho. Choi Minho, I’m an elemental specialist, but I guess that’s not too important,” Minho introduced. Taekwoon tentatively took the other man’s hand, shaking slightly before letting go immediately. “This is Ares… as you met yesterday.”

“But I go by Taemin in this realm,” the servant spoke up.

“Jung Taekwoon,” he returned, purposefully leaving any information about Sanghyuk out. They didn’t need to know anything.

“Yeah, I know who you are,” Minho said. “Everyone does.”

Taekwoon was taken aback.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Taekwoon asked, backing away from Minho cautiously.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Minho admitted.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Sanghyuk warned, very obviously holding himself back from trying to intervene. Taekwoon grabbed his wrist in warning, Sanghyuk glanced at him but continued to hold his ground.

“The family name, Jung…” Minho started. “For regular humans the name means money, a mansion, an extravagant lifestyle. But for mages, it means a very, very long lineage of magic. Strong, powerful, endless magical energy; anyone who grew up a mage in this area knows the name very well. Only, we were told that a mage hadn’t been born to the Jung family in almost fifty years. Obviously, the stories were wrong since you stand in front of me now.”

“Where is this going?” Taekwoon asked. He had just finished a similar conversation with Sanghyuk and he really wasn’t interested in having it again.

“My point is that every mage in the country knows your family’s name and soon they’ll know yours.”

“I don’t see what you’re trying to get at.”

“Don’t you think it’s just a little strange that you get attacked one night and then the very next day, the kid that attacked you wants to form an alliance?” Minho finally asked.

“How did you know I got attacked?” Taekwoon asked in return.

“Please, everyone who has even a single magic circuit in their body felt the energy you used that night,” Ares, or Taemin as he preferred, spoke up. He looked uninterested in this whole ordeal, as if he was forced to be there.

“Okay, then how do you know about Hongbin?”

“We’ve ran into him and his servant before, they didn’t put up much of a fight. They ran once they saw Taemin was a saber servant. I only assumed he approached you yesterday because I saw you two flee the battle together.”

“How perceptive of you,” Taekwoon snorted. “And why should I tell you the details of my alliance?”

“Because I’m guessing that when he first came to you, you declined his invitation, right?” Minho started. “And then not even an hour later you get attacked again, but this time by the Archer, yes?”

“Yeah…?” Taekwoon said, he looked to Sanghyuk. His servant looked just as confused by what Minho was telling him.

“Then Berserker, another in Hongbin’s little group, comes and saves the day. At which point, Taemin and I get to the battle. Your servant is caught in a hard spot when yet again you’re saved. Assassin…”

“Another of Hongbin’s friends,” Taemin finished.

“Are you trying to tell me not to trust them?” Taekwoon asked.

“What do you think?” Minho asked.

Taekwoon didn’t say anything. He had to admit everything Minho told him did make the events of yesterday look a little more than just coincidences. But if he started doubting his alliance before they even did anything… what was the point in even joining the alliance. They were just a bunch of kids… he couldn’t- wouldn’t- leave them to fend for themselves.

 “Just think about it. Keep your guard up around those kids, specifically the leader. Hongbin as you called him.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Taekwoon asked. No matter which way he looked at it, he couldn’t figure out how telling him all this information was beneficial to Minho at all.

“Just… if you ever find yourself in trouble. Like you can’t trust anyone anymore, come find me. We’d make a pretty unstoppable team.” Minho said.

Another person wanted Taekwoon in their alliance. After what Minho had told him, after what Hongbin had told him. After getting attacked by the both of them. He wasn’t sure who was telling the truth and who was just planting information to twist his point of view in their favor.

“We’ll see,” Taekwoon announced. Minho nodded.

“Think about it.”

He began to back up, hands slipping back into his pockets.

“I’ll see you around,” Minho said finally, turning around to finally walk away. Taemin followed after him, nodding in their direction once with that same confident smile on his face.

As they left however, Taekwoon felt something. A wave of energy. It didn’t last long, almost like a singular ping on a radar. Minho and Taemin stopped walking, having sensed the same energy.

“What was that?” Taekwoon asked aloud to anyone who would answer.

“Another servant,” Sanghyuk answered, taking a step towards the source of the wave. The energy around them was beginning to fade but Taekwoon could still sense where it had originated: Somewhere back on the college’s campus. Could it have been another student? Another person Taekwoon saw on a daily basis during lectures?

“It’s a calling… for attention probably. Whatever servant that’s over there is probably looking for a fight… or to chat I guess but that’s less likely. Sanghyuk continued, turning back to face Taekwoon. He looked anxious; not like he was looking forward to a fight, but rather dreading it.

“Should we answer?” Taekwoon asked carefully.

“Depends… if the servant is looking for a fight this would be a pretty obvious trap.”

Taekwoon watched up ahead as Taemin nodded to his master before they both went running towards the signal.

“Let’s go check it out…” Taekwoon said quietly.

“Want to get into a fight that badly?” Sanghyuk teased, laughing.

“I don’t recognize the energy source,” Taekwoon began. “So that means it’s probably Rider and if that’s the case then by observing a fight between him and another servant could provide some pretty valuable insight.”

Sanghyuk laughed again, rubbing at his forehead; obviously exasperated. “Damn you and your good points.”

“You sound as if you don’t want to go.”

Sanghyuk sighed.

“We can talk about my problems later,” Sanghyuk responded. “Let’s just get over there.”

Taekwoon nodded begrudgingly; if something was still bothering Sanghyuk, he wanted to know. But he knew this wasn’t the time nor the place to pick each other apart; not when there was a servant openly declaring his position to everyone else.

“Stay close to me,” Sanghyuk said so softly. There were so many emotions in Sanghyuk’s face that Taekwoon couldn’t decipher. He nodded in understanding, trying to keep his embarrassment off his face. Then they both took off running down the street back towards the fading signal.

They found the source in the circular quad; the very center of campus surrounded by tall buildings filled with classrooms and lecture halls. The large, grassy area provided no cover besides a few small trees. It was the perfect spot to avoid ambushes, whoever this servant and master pair was, they were tactical.

Upon getting closer, the source of the energy became clear. In the very center of the clearing, Taekwoon could make out a singular figure. A man, tall and broad yet skinny and gangly, stood proudly in the very center of the circle. He was dressed casually, sweater, jeans, canvas shoes. But from the energy pouring off the man, Taekwoon wasn’t fooled by the appearance. The man was a servant, and his master was nowhere to be seen.

Taemin and Minho were nearby, looking at the man with equal confusion.

“Welcome! The servant yelled excitedly. “I was beginning to think no one would come!”

Taekwoon looked to Sanghyuk.

“What is he doing?” He asked through their telepathic connection.

“I’m not sure,” Sanghyuk responded. “But this is either a brilliant trap or the stupidest plan I’ve ever seen.”

“Let’s hope for stupidest plan,” Taekwoon said, he turned and looked towards Taemin and Minho. Minho shrugged, looking just as confused by this whole ordeal as Taekwoon felt. What master would willingly call every servant in the war to his own? The Rider class of servants wasn’t particularly talented and would fail miserably against the other six if they all showed up. What could be this man’s motive?

Across the clearing, another pair started walking closer. Taekwoon recognized them immediately: Chanyeol and his servant, Baekhyun. It made sense that the three of them would be the ones to answer a call. They all either lived on campus or near enough to it to respond quickly. If any of the others in his alliance felt the energy call, it would take a while for them to get here. Could that have been on purpose?

“Ah more guests!” The servant in the middle of the clearing called. He looked excited, like he couldn’t actually believe people showed up to answer him. “I think we can get started now.”

"What are you playing at, Rider?" Minho yelled to the servant.

The servant only smiled in response, ignoring the question completely as he continued: "I'd like to ask you all a few questions that will hopefully end up beneficial for us all."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Taemin asked, clearly becoming annoyed. Taekwoon looked to Sanghyuk.

"Is this a trap?" Taekwoon asked inwardly. Sanghyuk shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm unsure, but we should stay on high alert."

Taekwoon nodded, beginning to survey the area they stood in. He could clearly feel Sanghyuk's energy, though that was to be expected. His aura appeared a deep, pleasant blue if Taekwoon focused hard enough. Next to them, Taemin's energy came to him a lot stronger than Minho's, but that was to be expected from a powerful servant. The red and the yellow auras complimented each other well. Across the way, Taekwoon could faintly feel Chanyeol's orange and Baekhyun's white auras as well as the Rider servant's green one in the middle. But other than those six auras, there were no others. Rider's master was nowhere close enough for Taekwoon to detect him and that meant, he was nowhere close enough to mount a surprise attack. Though Taekwoon seriously doubted a single mage had enough energy to attack three others and their servants. Even Taekwoon couldn't do that by himself.

"Let me first introduce myself. You could all already probably tell that I'm the Rider class servant for this Holy Grail war. And though I'd rather not tell you my true name, you can all call me Seokjin, or just Jin for short if that's easier to remember.

"I can also assure you all that this is not a trap, I merely wanted to talk to all of you," Seokjin finished explaining. Taekwoon was not convinced, however. And apparently no one else was either.

"You know, that's exactly what someone who was setting up a trap for all of us would say," Baekhyun yelled from across the way.

The servants first response was to laugh, as if Baekhyun had just told the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

"If I wanted to surprise you all, I wouldn't have waited for six of you to show up. I also wouldn't have been standing out in the open waiting for you all to show up. Now before you all accuse me of anything else, I'd like to propose my support."

"You're asking for an alliance?" Minho asked.

"With all of us?" Chanyeol added.

"I'll take whoever wants to join me, but if the seven of us teamed up with my master we'd be pretty unstoppable, don't you agree? The three strongest classes all on one team would be hard to beat."

"Yeah? And what's stopping us from teaming up against you right now? You're just one servant, the Rider class at that. What's stopping the three strongest classes from teaming up and beating you?" Taemin was the next to ask a question.

"A sense of decency. We're all heroic spirits, aren't we? I believe that means we're supposed to be somewhat decent people to be classified as heroes."

The servant made a good point. Taekwoon doubted, even if no one accepted Seokjin’s offer, that any of the servants here would willingly attack the man.

"What's in it for us if we join you? You're just looking for an easy ride to the final four servants." Baekhyun asked.

"You've caught me," Seokjin laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. "That's exactly what I want, but once I get there I know I'll have no chance against you three, so you'll be taking someone easy to get rid of with you to the end."

"But we'll also be taking each of us to the end. The three strongest servants in an all-out war at the end doesn't sound appealing to me," Minho continued.

"Yes, but if you haven't noticed. Assassin, Caster and Berserker have all already teamed up. Add to that these two," Seokjin pointed at Taekwoon and Sanghyuk. The other two pairs of servants and masters looked towards him as Seokjin continued. "And you've got another hard to beat team. But with the four of them, I'm one hundred percent certain it would be Mr. Jung winning the whole thing."

From across the field, Chanyeol and Baekhyun immediately began discussing something in hushed tones. Taemin shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot next to them as well. What Seokjin had just said clearly didn't sit well with the others in the clearing.

"You know, if you want someone to leave another alliance to join you, putting a target on their backs isn't such a good tactic," Sanghyuk spoke up, defensively.

"Yes, but even if you two don't join, I'll still have effectively pinned these two against you. I'm clearly not a threat, my master isn't even a mage! But you, Mr. Jung, are most certainly a threat. Possibly the biggest one there is as this war stands now."

Taekwoon didn't like where this was going... All of a sudden, this whole situation began to make a lot more sense than just a simple temporary peace negotiation. Seokjin wasn't looking for a fight with the others and he most certainly wasn’t really looking for an alliance; he was looking for the three strongest servants to fight each other. More specifically, he was targeting Taekwoon. It was a trap, just not meant for all of them.

Taekwoon looked to Sanghyuk, and Sanghyuk understood almost immediately what he was thinking. They couldn't run, though. If they did, that would immediately prompt the others to attack. Taemin and Minho were too close, they'd never be able to escape without some sort of a fight.

Taekwoon slowly began backing away from the group, making sure that no one was looking when he did. Sanghyuk moved in front of him, defensive but not enough to cause alarm to anyone looking at them.

He wasn’t sure what he could say to stop whatever was going to happen next.

“Taekwoon,” Minho called to him, not loud enough for Seokjin, Chanyeol or Baekhyun to hear. “Remember what I offered?”

But before Taekwoon could respond with anything, an echoing laugh boomed around the clearing. It sounded wholly deranged, like the person it belonged to was completely insane. Taekwoon felt a sense of dread… he recognized the voice.

The four servants each braced themselves, frantically searching for the source of the laughter. Sanghyuk, like Taekwoon, immediately knew who they were dealing with and took the opportunity to move even closer to Taekwoon.

The man walked in to the clearing, to the left of where everyone else stood. He staggered immensely, like he had to force his body to walk forward. His movements were more like jerks and it took his entire body to move. His suit was disheveled and his hair wild. He carried his giant battle scythe in one hand, blade pointed towards the ground. He staggered closer, laughing maniacally with every step he took.

“It looks like Jaehwan snapped,” Sanghyuk mumbled.

“What would have caused it?” Taekwoon asked.

“Probably so many powerful mages and servants in one spot, we should get out of here. In that state, he’d attack anyone. Friend or foe.”

Taekwoon nodded, but before they could run away, Jaehwan started to speak.

“There you are, Rider!” He laughed. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

He pointed at the servant in the middle of the clearing, putting his whole body in to the motion. Clearly, he wasn’t in charge of his own actions any longer.

“Berserker,” Rider greeted. “There was a reason I’d been in hiding for so long.”

“What a scaredy cat!” The servant laughed, completely ignoring what Seokjin had told him. “I just wanted to kill you, is that so much to ask for?! To kill all of you!?”

Jaehwan didn’t wait for any sort of a response, instead, he ran at the Rider class servant with a lot more dexterity than he had been walking with. He ran in a zig zag, laughing his head off. Rider watched in horror before zipping away from the servant in an instant. He jumped into the air, floating a way above the ground, out of the way of the servant trying to murder him. Jaehwan looked up at him, standing where Seokjin had been standing before, maddening smile still on his face. His head was cocked to the left as he watched Seokjin in the air, arms dangling in front of him lifelessly.

“Always running away!” Jaehwan sing-songed, spinning in a circle. “What to do!?” He stopped spinning and zeroed in on Baekhyun, standing a short way away. “Hello Archer! We never got to finish our fight!”

Chanyeol, began running away as fast as his spells would allow him, probably on Baekhyun’s orders. But Jaehwan didn’t seem to care, he focused wholly on the Archer servant, who readied himself for battle.

While Baekhyun erupted into a ball of blinding white light to transform into his servant form, Taekwoon felt a tug on his arm, pulling him away from the battle. Upon noticing Hongbin’s arrival to the battle, Sanghyuk followed along.

“You’ve gotta stop pulling me around,” Taekwoon told the teen as they headed away from the battle.

“Yeah well, if you haven’t noticed, Wonsik lost control of Jaehwan and everyone in this area is in a massive amount of danger,” Hongbin explained. “It’s best we run. When we’re far enough away to not be tracked, Wonsik’ll use a command seal to calm Jaehwan and call him back.”

“Where are we going?” Taekwoon asked, noticing that Hongbin was pulling him in the opposite direction of where his apartment was.

“I don’t know,” Hongbin shook his head. He sounded frantic, incredibly worried.

"Hyungwon saw Saber's master lurking around my apartment complex today, asking questions about me, Wonsik, and Hoseok. He knows where I live at the least and I don't have the capabilities to put up magical wards around the entirety of the complex. We can't go to Hoseok's or Wonsik's because they have family that could easily get hurt..." Hongbin began frantically rambling on as Jaehwan's laughs and mad comments continued to echo around the clearing.

"Let's go to my house," Taekwoon offered quickly. It was late, his family would all be asleep. And even if they weren't, Taekwoon doubted any of them would tell him off for having friends over so late; it was his house, after all. He'd placed all the ward spells he could think of over the house before leaving for work today, strong enough ones that even Sanghyuk was impressed. Nothing magical would get in unless Taekwoon allowed it. "It's protected, we'd be safe there even if everyone knows where I live."

An explosion went off, followed by a blinding white light. Baekhyun had his bow now, Taemin and Minho were nowhere to be seen, and Rider still hovered above the battlefield. The arrow had hit Jaehwan squarely, but when the light died down, it had had no effect. Jaehwan only continued giggling, staggering slowly towards Baekhyun, almost mockingly.

Hongbin glanced back at Taekwoon, considering his offer carefully and looking rather reluctant but nodded anyway. He took off in the direction of Taekwoon's mansion, seeming to know the way rather well. Maybe Minho did have a point, earlier. Everyone in the city knew who he was, maybe not his face, but definitely his name... including Hongbin. Regardless, Taekwoon followed Hongbin down the street, with Sanghyuk only a few steps behind him. Taekwoon was getting tired of running away from battles, but it was probably for the best until they could get a solid plan down.

Taekwoon ran up to his front porch, mentally giving Hongbin and his servant the right to step through the wards. Then, and only then, did Hongbin seem to relax a little. Taekwoon braced himself against a column, trying to catch his breath. Sanghyuk looked to him worriedly. Silently understanding Sanghyuk's question, Taekwoon nodded in assurance that he would be okay.

Hongbin summoned a small fox-like familiar, telling it a quick message before it ran off. Probably to tell Wonsik to call Jaehwan off. Outside the protection of the wards, Taekwoon saw Hyungwon and Hoseok approach at a running speed. Another quick thought, and they both were allowed in to the warded area. They joined them on the porch.

"What the hell happened out there?" Hoseok asked no one in particular, but looked towards Taekwoon and Sanghyuk.

"We were walking home from Taekwoon's night job," Sanghyuk started. "When we felt Rider's calling, figuring we should check it out. We turned back to head to the college and found Rider. Saber and Archer showed up first as well."

Hoseok nodded. Hyungwon looked between the two of them with a confused looked on his face. Taekwoon felt worry ping through his stomach. Sanghyuk had left out the little chat Minho, Taemin and them had had with good reason; but if Hyungwon had been surveying the city he could have seen that conversation happen. Thankfully, the Assassin type servant said nothing more.

"We felt it too, just a bit delayed. Hyungwon watched the whole thing from afar. What did he want?" Hoseok asked.

"An alliance," Taekwoon answered. "He wanted an alliance and when we all seemed reluctant, he tried to turn them all against me."

"Then Jaehwan showed up," Sanghyuk finished.

“When he felt the servant’s call, he freaked out completely. There wasn’t anything Wonsik could do, short of using a command spell. But when Hyungwon noticed you were there and it looked like the conversation took an unfortunate turn, we let Jaehwan go to provide a distraction,” Hongbin explained.

“Thanks for that,” Taekwoon said. “I don’t know how I would’ve gotten out of that situation without your help.”

“See? Having an alliance is a good thing,” Hongbin laughed. Taekwoon smiled but offered nothing else, he felt too conflicted to agree with Hongbin at the moment.

“Wonsik and Jaehwan are coming,” Hyungwon said quietly, looking down the street. Taekwoon could barely make out two figures coming down the street. One was supporting the other, the other didn’t move at all and his feet dragged across the pavement, completely passed out.

As soon as they were close enough, Taekwoon gave them permission to enter. They all entered the house together then. Taekwoon led them to a bedroom first where they laid Jaehwan down on the bed.

“What happened?” He asked.

“When I used the spell, he teleported back to me but passed out on site. I’m sure that it was the only way for him to calm down from the bloodlust. He should wake in a few hours,” Wonsik said.

“He can stay here then, you all can if you’d rather not leave,” Taekwoon told them.

“What about your family?” Hyungwon asked.

“They won’t mind,” Taekwoon answered. More like they couldn’t mind.

“Then it would be much appreciated,” Hongbin smiled. “I really don’t like the idea of going back to my apartment if Saber’s master knows where I live.”

“He probably knows where we all live,” Hoseok added quietly. The three teenagers went silent again, clearly very worried about being attacked in their own homes. The threat to their lives was very real and it was really starting sink in it seemed.

“Let’s go somewhere to talk,” Taekwoon said, trying to turn the conversation away from the dark path it was headed down. “Let Jaehwan sleep off the spell in peace.”

The three teens nodded along with Hyungwon and they left the room. Sanghyuk pulled Taekwoon back a bit.

“Are you sure about this?” Sanghyuk asked him, barely above a whisper.

“You see how scared they are, don’t you?” Taekwoon asked. Sanghyuk nodded. “They’re not faking it.”

“Fair enough.”

“And if they try anything, the entire place is charmed.”

That seemed to convince Sanghyuk enough for now. They followed the rest of them out into the hallway and Taekwoon led them all through the house to a large living room. It was close to one-thirty in the morning. His family wouldn’t wake for another six hours at the least and by then everyone would be in a bedroom. They’d never even notice that Taekwoon had three people over.

They conversed for a time. Discussing what would they could do if Jaehwan ever snapped again for no reason. If putting him to sleep quelled the madness, then Hakyeon could cast a spell. And if Hakyeon wasn’t in a position to do such a thing, Taekwoon would be their next best bet to cast a strong enough spell to put Jaehwan out.

Hyungwon also introduced himself formally. He was rather quiet as a whole, but seemed decent enough. Not as bold as Hakyeon or as strange as Jaehwan. The three teenagers and their servants certainly made a strange group of people. Throw Taekwoon and Sanghyuk in to the mix and the group became even weirder.

It was around two o’clock when they all decided to get some sleep. It was the weekend tomorrow, who knew what could happen if they left the mansion. They all needed sleep if they were to be at their best.

Taekwoon showed them his guests to a bedroom around the house, keeping them all in close proximity to Taekwoon’s own bedroom. He instructed them to come to his room when they woke up and to not wander the house without him. He made sure they knew it was only because his family would not react well to visitors if Taekwoon was not around to explain who they were. It wouldn’t end well for anyone.

Taekwoon led Hongbin to a room last and before he could leave Hongbin stopped him.

“I know you were talking to Saber’s master before Rider’s calling,” he said, sounding entirely too serious for his age. “Hyungwon saw it and relayed it back to me. He found it rather strange.”

“He offered his allegiance if I left the three of you,” Taekwoon explained. There was no use denying it if Hongbin knew the truth. There wasn’t any crime in talking to another person.

“And you said?” Hongbin asked.

“I told him I had no reason to leave the three of you, I have no desire.”

“Good,” Hongbin said. Taekwoon felt slightly annoyed that a boy, no older than eighteen, was talking down to him like he was the young child. “If that answer ever changes, I won’t hesitate to end this myself.”

And with that he closed the door and shut Taekwoon out of one of his own guest rooms. With a shaky sigh, Taekwoon walked back to his own room.

Once there, he shut the door and all but slammed his head against the closed door.

Why was this all so confusing?! Could he do nothing right? He supposed this was the purpose Minho hoped to cause with his little chat. Confuse Taekwoon. Make him falsely doubt the people he trusted most and put his allies on edge by approaching Taekwoon in a public area. God damn it! What was he going to do now? What should he do? Hongbin had basically just made a threat to his life if he even so much as suspected Taekwoon’s trust was waning.

“Hey,” a quiet voice called to him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He felt a hand on his shoulder, felt Sanghyuk’s presence materialize beside him. Taekwoon shook his head ‘no’. He felt the all too familiar sting in his eyes from holding back tears, felt ashamed at wanting to cry over something so silly. He didn’t trust his voice not to give him away, it probably wouldn’t come out above a whisper.

“Come here,” Sanghyuk said, pulling Taekwoon towards him carefully. Taekwoon didn’t resist, he felt physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. A hand was placed on either of Taekwoon’s shoulders, and Sanghyuk bent down to look Taekwoon in the eye. Taekwoon looked at anything but the terribly worried face in front of him. “Look at me,” Sanghyuk instructed.

A hand came up to Taekwoon’s chin, gently prodding him to look at Sanghyuk finally. Upon seeing the pure, unfiltered worry in those brown eyes, Taekwoon broke down. He leapt in to Sanghyuk’s arms, embracing him in a tight hug. Sanghyuk was clearly confused at first but easily returned the hug after realizing that Taekwoon was now quietly crying against his chest.

He allowed Sanghyuk full access to his thoughts so he didn’t have to explain his confusion out loud. Sanghyuk’s grip tightened around Taekwoon’s waist as he heard all the rambling confusion and anxiety.

“It’s okay,” he offered quietly, soothingly running a hand through Taekwoon’s hair. “Do you want to trust Hongbin and the others?” He asked.

Taekwoon nodded, burying his face a little deeper in to Sanghyuk’s chest, bathing in the comfort he got from being held so securely.

“Then we will. Even if that’s the wrong choice. Even if they all turn against you. You’re not alone, you know.” Sanghyuk said, he moved to look down at Taekwoon. He wiped a tear away from Taekwoon’s cheek. “No matter what happens, no matter who turns against you, no matter what anyone says. You’ll always have me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update, I really didn't mean to put this off for so long. I just got really busy with school and stuff but regardless, I hope to put out the next chapter relatively quickly. Shit's about to hit the fan and I can't wait to write it ^-^. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! All comments appreciated! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Taekwoon, surprisingly enough, was the first to wake up the next day at exactly two-thirty in the afternoon. He groaned audibly, rolling on his side to make sure his phone wasn't lying to him about the time.

It wasn't.

"Well good morning sleeping beauty," Sanghyuk called from Taekwoon's closet. The man exited the walk-in, shirt in hand instead of on.

"What did you call me?" Taekwoon mumbled, rolling on to his back and laying a hand over his eyes. He felt heavy, his head full of cotton. He should've set an actual alarm instead of relying on teenagers to wake him up at a reasonable time. Sanghyuk’s lack of a shirt and the sight of pale chiseled skin was doing nothing to help compile his thoughts either. But he felt rested at the least. It was his first full night of sleep since this war began, and he wasn’t going to complain about that.  

"It's a figure of speech," Sanghyuk laughed, slipping one of Taekwoon's T-shirts over his head finally. He refused to let Taekwoon buy him a small wardrobe, no matter how many times Taekwoon asked. So, he continued to borrow clothes from Taekwoon's own collection. Not like it really mattered to Taekwoon anyway, he couldn't wear half of the clothes in his own closet anymore. He'd been losing weight consistently these past few years; not much fit the way it was supposed to anymore so if it fit Sanghyuk, Taekwoon was happy to share.

"If you say so," Taekwoon responded.

"But I mean, you do look rather nice when there's not a constant frown on your face," Sanghyuk mused aloud. Taekwoon looked over to him, surprised to see such a genuine smile on his servant's face. Taekwoon never would've guessed that the brooding and dark God of the Underworld would be so charming in real life. "Perhaps you should smile more, it'd brighten everything up."

"When did you become such a flirt?" Taekwoon teased to hide his embarrassment. "I'm not some maiden, you know. The opposite, really."

Taekwoon got up from his fluffy bed in search of a shirt of his own and some jeans, hoping to convey the point to his servant that he really wasn't some damsel to win over. There were a few problems with that in the first place.

"Of course, I know that," Sanghyuk laughed. "Remember how I told you Persephone was never my type? Well there were a lot of major factors that went in to that. The biggest, of course, being that she was the wrong gender."

Taekwoon halted his movements for a split second before beginning to dress twice as fast as he had been before. Sanghyuk snorted quietly at the action, clearly amused.

Had he really just admitted to what Taekwoon thought he had?

"Are you saying that you're...?"

"Gay?" Sanghyuk cut off with a mischievous smile. "Yes, I am. So, you can imagine my frustration over being accused of kidnapping a girl. But had Persephone been a male... or had been even the fraction of beauty you are? Well, that would have been a whole other story."

Taekwoon blushed, staring wide-eyed at his servant. What on earth had prompted Sanghyuk to start acting this way?

"Confused?" Sanghyuk asked, seeming to practically read Taekwoon's mind.

It hit him then... along with mortification.

"Ah now you understand," Sanghyuk smiled. "How come you never told me you thought I was attractive?"

"That was unfair of you," Taekwoon mumbled, feeling very violated. "You should've told me."

"It wasn't my fault you forgot to shield your thoughts from me after giving me access last night," Sanghyuk shrugged as if he had done nothing wrong. As if reading Taekwoon's thoughts all night long wasn't a major breach of privacy. "You did promise no secrets, didn't you?"

"I didn't expect that to entail listening to my thoughts all night long," Taekwoon grumbled. He had a tough time falling asleep last night. His thoughts had run a mile a minute for at least an hour and his servant had come up more than once in his jumbled thoughts... though, he supposed what he had been thinking about at the time hadn't been necessarily appropriate for their current relationship.

"Don't forget about your dreams," Sanghyuk teased even further. "You have very... vivid dreams."

"You're the worst," Taekwoon stuttered out. He couldn't remember what he had dreamt about last night, but he figured by the way Sanghyuk was looking at him now that they hadn't been about something innocent.

"Aww... don't be that way. Here, you can read my thoughts on the matter if you'd like." Sanghyuk was beginning to walk closer now. Slowly, like he was stalking prey.

"No, that's all right," Taekwoon stuttered out. He was unsure of where this conversation could go if he let it.

"Are you sure? We could have lots of fun," Sanghyuk said. Taekwoon was backed up against a wall now, and Sanghyuk was still approaching.

"How do you know that?" Taekwoon scoffed.

"Because you still haven't guarded your mind again and I can see everything you're thinking of pretty clearly." An absolutely diabolical smirk spread across Sanghyuk's face. Taekwoon was jarringly reminded of the fact that the man zeroing in on him was, in fact, Hades: a god widely regarded as evil.

Without another thought, Taekwoon booted Sanghyuk out of his mind before his imagination could condemn him any further. Sanghyuk laughed once more, undeterred by Taekwoon's actions. He braced himself against the wall, trapping Taekwoon between him, his arms, and the wall.

"Stop messing around," Taekwoon chastised. "We need to focus on the war."

"And you need to relax a bit," Sanghyuk shot right back with no hesitation. "You're so stressed. Even now, I can feel it. You know what's a great stress reliever?"

"Maybe later," Taekwoon brushed off. He was very glad that he had finally kicked Sanghyuk from his mind. His imagination at the moment completely contradicted the composed responses he was giving. But he knew he couldn't give in. Not right this moment, anyway. He had three teenagers in his home that could come by at any time. "We have guests to deal with first."

Sanghyuk sighed.

"I suppose I can wait," he sighed. "But just know, it's not every day you get the offer to be worshipped by a god."

"What's in it for you?" Taekwoon asked, knowing full well the trope almost all the Greek Gods followed. They never gave something without getting something in return.

"The same that's in it for you. Stress relief, the pleasure of having your body against mine, the transfer of energy that would come with two magical beings becoming one," Sanghyuk whispered, moving his face in close to Taekwoon's. "What I would give to taste the full extent of your energy... that's more than enough for me to give you something in return."

He moved even closer; Taekwoon eyes slipped closed in preparation. But Sanghyuk's soft lips never met his own. Instead, a warm kiss was pressed against the tip of his nose. Taekwoon's eyes fluttered back open to meet the dark, dilated eyes of Sanghyuk.

"Don't keep me waiting too long," Sanghyuk teased, moving away a little bit.

"I'm sure you'll survive," Taekwoon responded.

"You know, I could die at any moment," Sanghyuk teased.

"Then that'll make waiting even more exhilarating," Taekwoon shot back, giving Sanghyuk a smirk of his own. Sanghyuk clicked his tongue a few times, shaking his head with that evil smirk still on his face.

"Such a tease," Sanghyuk chuckled. "I like you."

"So I've been told," Taekwoon said, rolling his eyes. He attempted to push out of Sanghyuk's trap but found himself rendered immobile. Sanghyuk grabbed his waist and pulled him flush against his body.

"You're so cruel, Master," Sanghyuk whined darkly. "Here I am, offering myself to you and you turn me away like it's nothing." 

"What would you have me do then? We don't have time for this."

"Ah, then perhaps a kiss to tide me over?"

"No."

"Hmm, you're no fun."

"And you're not as irresistible as you think you are."

"Your dreams told me you think the exact opposite."

Taekwoon had enough of this game. He had more pressing matters to deal with right now.

"Sanghyuk?"

"Yes, love?"

"Stop."

Something flashed in Sanghyuk's eyes. Realization of what he was doing seemed to finally hit him. He let go of Taekwoon and backed away from him, suddenly looking embarrassed.

"Yes, Master... I'm sorry." He responded, bringing back the formality in his tone. He sounded genuine and that was good enough for Taekwoon. What had gotten in to him? Was it some sort of defense mechanism? Defense from what, though?

"I'll wake Hongbin, Wonsik, and Hoseok. You should get back to surveying the house," Taekwoon instructed.

"But what if-" Sanghyuk tried to argue, head snapping up to look at Taekwoon.

"If they try anything, the house is charmed. You'd have enough time to get back to me." Taekwoon cut him off with his explanation. Sanghyuk looked like he wanted to complain further, but upon seeing the absolutely serious look on Taekwoon's face, only looked away again.

"Yes Master." And with that, he melted into the shadows of Taekwoon's closet. Hopefully, doing as Taekwoon had asked of him.

He exited his bedroom after Sanghyuk left, looking down the hallways to see if anyone was out and about.

He felt the aura before he saw the person, but the aura was too familiar to be threatening.

"Hyungwon," Taekwoon called to the empty hallway in greeting.

"Sir," the servant replied, appearing out of the shadows the same way Sanghyuk had disappeared. He nodded respectfully towards Taekwoon, hands clasped behind his back as he stood at attention. He reminded Taekwoon of a dutiful lieutenant waiting to take orders.

"Where's Hoseok?" Taekwoon asked.

"In his room still," Hyungwon responded readily.

"Is he okay?"

"He had a bit of trouble sleeping last night," Hyungwon started. "But I'm glad you gave him a place to stay. He is calmer than I've seen him so far."

"I'm glad," Taekwoon smiled. Hyungwon did nothing. What a serious guy. "Is he awake?"

Hyungwon nodded once more before turning and walking swiftly down the hallway. Taekwoon followed after, assuming that's what the servant wanted from him. He opened the door leading to the bedroom Taekwoon had given Hoseok last night and waited for Taekwoon to enter before entering himself.

Hoseok stood up from where he had been sitting on the bed before, looking at Taekwoon with a smile.

"Good morning," Taekwoon offered awkwardly. He never was good at talking to people one on one.

"It's almost three in the afternoon," Hoseok said in response.

"Yeah, but I only got up thirty minutes ago," Taekwoon said, trying to defend his slip of the tongue. Maybe he should work on his social skills a bit more...

Hoseok looked startled by Taekwoon's admittance, Hyungwon snorted quietly.

"That makes two of us then," Hoseok agreed. "Where's your servant?"

"Sanghyuk is-"

"Right here," Sanghyuk finished for Taekwoon, appearing by his side. Taekwoon glared at him, and Sanghyuk only shrugged.

"I told you to go on surveillance," Taekwoon said through their link.

"I was," Sanghyuk responded. "Only I was watching over you instead of the house. You said it yourself, the house is charmed. Nothing's getting in without your permission. It's the people who have your permission that need to be watched."

Taekwoon shook his head but conceded. Sanghyuk had a point and arguing about this wasn't the best use of anyone's time.

"Hyungwon's told me he knows what your true identity is," Hoseok told Sanghyuk.

Sanghyuk smiled widely in response.

"Well, I would sure hope he would," Sanghyuk said. Taekwoon felt at a loss. He remembered from the battle yesterday that Sanghyuk had looked ecstatic to see the appearance of the Assassin type servant. Add to that their similar apparel in servant form and their similar auras and it was a little too much to just be a coincidence.

Hyungwon immediately jumped forward when Sanghyuk turned his gaze upon him. He knelt down to the ground at Sanghyuk's feet, bowing lowly.

"My Lord," he said. "I would recognize you anywhere."

Sanghyuk laughed at that, looking slightly embarrassed by Hyungwon's sudden actions.

"There's no need for that," Sanghyuk laughed, trying to get Hyungwon to stand back up quickly. Hyungwon refused to move, still bowing at Sanghyuk's feet. Taekwoon looked to Hoseok, who looked back at him with equal confusion. Obviously, this display of loyalty was lost to the both of them.

"Had I known you were here, I would have contacted you sooner..." Hyungwon began.

"Please Thanatos, get off the ground. How many times have we been over this?" Sanghyuk tried once more, practically pulling at the man to get off the ground.

"Thanatos?" Taekwoon asked.

"Hyungwon's true name," Hoseok answered. "How do you know who he is?"

Sanghyuk looked conflicted. He glanced back at Taekwoon, asking for permission to give his real name to a possible enemy.

Taekwoon thought of Hoseok, turning his attention to look at the young teenager. He wasn't particularly tall, but rather broad with a strong build. He had a nice face, one that always looked happy when resting. Then he looked to Hyungwon, who had finally gotten off the ground. He was practically the exact opposite of Hoseok. Tall, gangly, with a resting tired look on his face. The pair followed Hongbin's orders faithfully, and Hyungwon obviously trusted Taekwoon enough to reveal himself so readily in front of him. He could have easily done it in secret with Sanghyuk; especially considering how close their relationship seemed to be.

So Taekwoon nodded to Sanghyuk. Even if Hyungwon and Hoseok turned around and relayed all this information to the rest of team, it didn't matter anymore.

"How do I know Thanatos?" Sanghyuk asked the question again, musing to himself over the thought. "Well considering I'm the King of the Dead and Thanatos is Death itself... I suppose that means Thanatos works for me." He smiled deviously, Hyungwon snorted.

"That's putting it mildly. You practically raised me after I was born," Hyungwon continued.

"Hold on a second," Hoseok exclaimed, looking between Sanghyuk and Taekwoon incredulously. "Are you telling me... that you... that he's...?"

"Hades?" Sanghyuk filled in with a sly smile. He enjoyed introducing himself entirely too much, Taekwoon thought. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

He took a slight bow, but Sanghyuk's introduction didn't seem to make Hoseok's confusion any lesser.

"How the hell did you manage to summon someone like that?" Hoseok exclaimed. "How the hell do you keep him manifested for so long?"

"What do you mean?" Taekwoon asked.

"The more powerful the heroic spirit, the harder they are to summon and the harder it is to keep them in this plain of existence. Hades... well he's one of the big three Gods in Greek mythology... I'm impressed." Hoseok finished. "It was hard enough to summon Thanatos."

"Are you saying that I'm not strong?" Hyungwon joked, poking at Hoseok's sides.

"What? No, I'm just saying Hades is stronger." Hoseok laughed, edging away from his servant's poking.

"Understandable," Hyungwon agreed.

"You're too kind," Sanghyuk laughed.

The conversation died there. The pairs looked between each other with uncertainty.

"So uhh... would you guys have an issue fighting against each other... if it came down to it?" Hoseok asked slowly. Taekwoon had been thinking the same thing. Would Sanghyuk be able to fight and potentially kill someone he was so close to?

"I cannot speak for Sanghyuk, but to fight against him would be an honor. A great test of my abilities. I would not hold back," Hyungwon answered simply.

Sanghyuk laughed.

"I'd expect nothing less, I might hold back a little bit, but that would only make it a fair fight," he teased.

Hyungwon joined in his laughter. They clasped their hands together, laughing like old friends reunited.

"Sooo... then my next question is for you, Taekwoon," Hoseok started, sounding very uncertain.

"What is it?" Taekwoon asked.

"Can I trust you to not... not let the others know Hyungwon's true identity? I haven't told them... you're the only one who knows now."

"I wasn't planning on revealing anything, but can I ask the same of you?" Taekwoon turned the question back around.

"Of course..." Hoseok started, looking Taekwoon in the eyes. "I trust you."

"Then we have nothing to worry about," Taekwoon finished, and Hoseok nodded. "I'm going to go wake the others. If you would follow me, we could all sit down to talk about what to do next."

Hoseok nodded, looking to Hyungwon who also nodded in understanding. The servant disappeared a second later, melting into the floor and vanishing completely.

"If I tell you to survey the house, would you listen?" Taekwoon asked Sanghyuk inside his head.

"You already know the answer to that," Sanghyuk answered. Taekwoon laughed.

"Can you at least stay hidden?"

"As long as I don't have to leave your side."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

"Your wish is my command, Master," Sanghyuk said aloud, taking an almost mockingly deep bow. Taekwoon rolled his eyes inwardly at the display, Sanghyuk only smirked before disappearing the same way Hyungwon had.

"Where is he going?" Hoseok asked once Sanghyuk was completely gone.

"To survey the house."

"But Hyungwon's doing that."

"Yes, but it's my house. I'd prefer to know what's going on in it in an instant."

Hoseok nodded in understanding. Taekwoon only felt a little bad lying to Hoseok, but he had to. It wasn't him Taekwoon was worried about anyway.

"He's not really like what all the stories say..." Hoseok said suddenly. "Sanghyuk, I mean. I always pictured a guy like him being... more terrifying."

"Yeah," Taekwoon agreed. "But instead, he's just annoying."

Hoseok laughed in response to Taekwoon's comment but gave nothing else.

"Rude," he heard Sanghyuk's voice echo in his head.

"Shall we go?" Taekwoon asked, ignoring Sanghyuk’s comment and gesturing towards the door that would lead back to the hallway. Hoseok nodded in agreement, and they both left the room.

Hongbin's room was the next one down the hallway; Taekwoon was unsurprised to see him already awake, browsing what looked like Instagram on his cellphone. He bolted up immediately when Taekwoon opened his door, looking startled by the sudden intrusion.

"What? No knocking?" Hongbin laughed when Taekwoon entered.

"I thought you'd still be asleep," Taekwoon answered.

"I've been up for a bit now," Hongbin returned, standing up from the bed and moving towards the door.

"You could've come to my room."

"I couldn't remember the way."

Taekwoon could understand that. His house was rather large, it took a bit to get used to the maze of hallways and even then, it was difficult. Taekwoon sometimes would get lost on the way to his room when he was especially tired after a long shift at the library.

"Do you..." Hongbin started to ask. He looked nervous, like he wasn't sure if he were allowed to ask the question he wanted to ask. "Do you have any food?"

Taekwoon thought that was a rather strange question to ask. Hongbin did see the house he was in, didn't he? Of course he would have food...

But then Taekwoon thought back to Hongbin's apartment in the shadiest part of town. He thought of the small kitchenette in the apartment. How it was covered in magical ingredients and didn't look to be used for food at all.

"Do I have any food?" Taekwoon scoffed with a smile. "The real question is, how much can you eat?"

Hongbin laughed, a bright smile appearing on his face. Taekwoon was struck by how handsome the eighteen year old was. With dimpled cheeks and crescent eyes, Taekwoon could hardly believe it was all natural.

"Stop staring at him," Sanghyuk teased for only Taekwoon to hear.

"Jealous?" Taekwoon shot right back. Sanghyuk didn't say anything else but Taekwoon had a feeling he hit the nail right on the head.

He gestured for Hongbin to exit the room so they could gather the last member of their alliance.

No one was surprised to see Wonsik still sleeping when Taekwoon entered the room. Still snoring heavily like it were actually three in the morning instead of three in the afternoon.

"I've been trying to get him up for the past hour," Jaehwan said, upon noticing their arrival in the room. He was looking better than he was last night, more composed, calmer. Taekwoon was glad he didn't have a rogue Berserker running through his home.

"Glad to see you're feeling better," Hongbin said.

"Yeah... I was really confused when I woke up in one of these rooms without anyone around. Then I found Wonsikkie sleeping and figured we were probably at Taekwoon's house."

"You guessed correctly," Hongbin agreed.

"Great, now help me get him up."

It took another five minutes, constant screeching from Jaehwan and Hakyeon finally materializing and dumping a summoned jar of water on Wonsik to finally get him awake.

"A room full of supposedly smart mages and none of you thought to use water to wake him up," Hakyeon tsked, leaning against the doorframe as Wonsik sputtered on the bed.

"What the hell was that for?" Wonsik exclaimed.

"You weren't waking up," Jaehwan explained. "Like usual."

"Oh." Wonsik said, running a hand through wet, bleached white hair. "My bad."

"Yeah, your bad." Hongbin laughed.

After getting Wonsik some dry clothes, Taekwoon lead the three teenagers, Hakyeon and Jaehwan down towards the kitchens. His family's chef was a little surprised to see Taekwoon leading a small group of people into her kitchens. But then was ecstatic to find that Taekwoon had brought her hungry mouths to feed. She immediately went to work, even going as far as to ask for what each guest would like to eat. Taekwoon offered her an extra payment for her trouble, but she immediately waved him off. Saying: "Anything for the darling head of the household." But she did force him to get something to eat as well. Taekwoon made a mental note to pay the chef a little extra anyway.

With food on the way, Taekwoon led the group to the dining room. The table was large, able to seat fourteen comfortably. Everyone took a seat within the middle of the table.

"So..." Wonsik started, looking around the lavishly decorated dining room. "Where's your family?" 

"They're around," Taekwoon answered vaguely. In all honesty, he had absolutely no idea where the members of his family would be at this time of day and he really didn't feel like guessing at the moment.

"I take it you're not very close with them?" Hongbin asked.

"You could say that," Taekwoon answered again. He wasn't particularly interested in revealing his family's dynamics to almost complete strangers. It wasn't really their business anyway.

"So..." Hoseok started, sensing Taekwoon's reluctance to answer these questions and attempting to change the subject. "About what we should do next?"

"Right," Hongbin agreed, looking to his servant to begin relaying information.

"I believe we talked about going after Archer first, yes?" Hakyeon asked the group.

"We can't take down Saber and Archer at the same time," Hongbin agreed. "And going to attack Saber by himself would just be a calling card for Archer to pick people off while we're distracted."

"So we don't have much of a choice," Wonsik spoke up. "We have to take down the Archer."

"The only question is how," Hoseok added.

"Attacking him when he's a distance away from us would be stupid," Hakyeon said. "He's an Archer servant for a reason, ranged attacks are his specialty. But we can't rule out his ability for close ranged attackers either. If he only used ranged attacks, he'd be screwed up close so he's bound to have a secondary attack. It'll be weaker than if he were to use a bow but not so much so that he can be ruled out in a battle."

"When I got close to him, his bow split into two blades," Jaehwan added.

"Hyungwon noticed that as well," Hoseok added.

"So a duel-wielder up close but not as skilled with the blades as he is with his bow," Hongbin mused aloud.

"A sneak attack could work," Wonsik pitched. Everyone considered the idea for a moment. Taekwoon thought the idea would work if they were going up against a different servant.

"But that would put us at a distance from him, giving him the opportunity to hit back twice as hard. Plus, he's probably got the best perception out of everyone," Hakyeon countered with a sigh.

"What if we did what Rider did the other day?" Hoseok asked.

"What do you mean?" Hongbin asked.

"We could put out a signal, call out for servants. Make it out like one of us wants to form an alliance with someone else, and then attack when his guard is down," Hoseok elaborated.

"Isn't that kind of slimy, though?" Wonsik asked, looking uncomfortable with that proposition. "I thought the four of us team up so we wouldn't have to resort to nasty tricks to take down the others."

"Wonsikkie is right," Jaehwan agreed. "Even as a Berserker class I can tell you how wrong that is. Plus, after my brief... meltdown last night, I doubt anyone will answer another calling."

"You're right..." Hoseok said, looking a little deflated.

"It was an idea," Taekwoon told him, attempting to comfort him. "But I don't think we're in that dire of a situation for those kinds of fighting tactics."

The table fell silent just as the doors to the kitchen opened. A couple dishes of food were placed in front of them, curtesy of some of the staff that Taekwoon employed. The three teens all immediately dug in, acting like they hadn't eaten properly in ages.

A plate of cubed fruit was placed in front of Taekwoon. He wasn't even remotely hungry, as was the usual.

"You better eat something," Sanghyuk's voice echoed inside his head. He sounded like a nagging mother.

"And why do you care so much?" Taekwoon shot back.

"Because you need to take care of yourself better."

"Again, why do you care?"

"Because I just do," Sanghyuk said, unbelievably quiet.

Taekwoon rolled his eyes, but popped a cube of watermelon in his mouth anyway.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah."

After eating quietly for a few more minutes, Hakyeon cleared his throat.

"Breakfast... or lunch I suppose, aside. We still have to figure out what to do about Archer."

"Taekwoon? What do you know about Archer's master?" Hongbin asked between bites of food.

"His name is Park Chanyeol, I have a class with him at the university," Taekwoon started, feeling a little uncomfortable with all the eyes watching him. "I don't really know much else about him other than that he used exclusively fire magic against me the other day."

Hongbin thought about what Taekwoon said for a minute before saying: "I have heard rumors that the Park family's latest mage wasn't nearly as talented as his predecessors. Maybe that's the only kind of magic he can use."

"Are you suggesting we go after Chanyeol instead of his servant? Because that's even slimier than what Hoseok suggested," Wonsik said.

"No, I was just thinking out loud," Hongbin said. Taekwoon was put on-edge by how absentmindedly Hongbin said that.

"So what are you thinking we do?" Wonsik asked carefully. Taekwoon wondered if Wonsik was just as off-put by Hongbin's dismissal as he was.

"I think we send Taekwoon and Sanghyuk out to face Chanyeol and Baekhyun. Hoseok can figure out his schedule and see if he's ever at the campus late at night. Then, Taekwoon and Sanghyuk can approach him and challenge him to a fight. Jaehwan and Hakyeon can be on stand-by in case another servant shows up. And Hyungwon can monitor the whole situation to make sure there are no surprises."

"That... could actually work..." Hakyeon agreed, mulling over the possibilities for failure within the plan.

"Do you think Sanghyuk could handle Archer?" Hongbin turned to Taekwoon.

"Do they think I can handle it," Sanghyuk scoffed. Taekwoon held back laughter of his own for fear of giving Sanghyuk's real position away.

"I think he'd be just fine, as long as he was able to fight up close," Taekwoon answered. "And there's no need for Hyungwon to survey his schedule, I know when he'll be out late at night."

"How?" Hoseok asked.

"Every Saturday night there's a help group for students in advanced musical composition. They open up the instrument rooms for students to practice, write compositions, or just play to blow off some steam. Chanyeol attends this every week. I used to go too, until I found the piano my grandmother had been hiding from me in the basement."

"And you're sure he'll be there."

Taekwoon nodded again. He often saw Chanyeol walk past the library that late at night when Taekwoon was working. He knew for a fact he'd be there. Unless of course, he was laying low due to the Holy Grail war, but even then, they could just revert back to Hongbin's original plan.

"It’s settled then," Hongbin assured. "Tonight, we take down Archer."

~*~

With ten minutes till eleven, ten minutes before Chanyeol would get out of his study session, Taekwoon found himself standing in front of the library. He stood in the middle of the large walkway that passed by the building and led towards the on-campus dorms. Chanyeol had to walk this way; there was no way to miss him.

Jaehwan, Hongbin, Wonsik and Hakyeon were hiding somewhere nearby. Taekwoon could hardly sense their energies so he figured they were far enough away that Chanyeol and Baekhyun would not detect them either. But hopefully they were close enough to intercede if things got out of hand during the battle.

Hoseok and Hyungwon would most likely be somewhere across town, keeping the entire area under surveillance so, as Hongbin had said, there would be no surprises. 

Sanghyuk stood next to him, yet slightly in front. For the first time since he'd been summoned, Sanghyuk was completely transformed. The tight, black and silver armor made him look twenty times more opposing than normal. His hood was not up, however, so Taekwoon could still see his face. His hair was different than it normally was, parted down the middle and styled into two cowlicks. A small silver, pointed crown adorned his head, bident in his right, and jagged dagger and chain attached to his left hip. He looked positively regal, and positively frightening, all at the same time. A King if Taekwoon had ever seen one.

"Do you style your hair or does it just fall magically in to place?" Taekwoon asked out of practically nowhere. All this standing around and waiting was making him extremely bored. That was the first question that came out of his mouth when he went to start a conversation.

Sanghyuk snorted, clearly amused by the sudden question.

"Careful Master, I might mistake your question for flirting."

"You're already doing that anyway," Taekwoon scoffed.

"You know me too well, I have to work on being more unpredictable."

"Or you could just answer my question."

"This is just how it falls, so I suppose it's the magic," Sanghyuk answered, a smirk slowly forming on his face. "Do you like it better this way?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Because," Sanghyuk shrugged.

"Well, I think you look nice normally or did your escapades through my mind last night slip your mind?" Taekwoon asked.

"No, I remember," Sanghyuk laughed, but it sounded forced. "You know... I am sorry for not reminding you about that last night."

"Oh yeah?"

"You were just so tired, and so worried... You never would've fallen asleep if I hadn't done something..."

"What are you saying?" Taekwoon asked, unsure of what Sanghyuk was going to tell him.

"I-I..." He paused, seemingly having a tough time getting out what he wanted to say. "I altered your thoughts about half an hour into you trying fruitlessly to fall asleep."

Taekwoon didn't say anything, hoping Sanghyuk would explain what in the world that meant.

"You needed to sleep... and that wasn't going to happen without a little help. So, I pushed happy thoughts to the forefront of your mind... and some of those just happened to contain-"

"Stop," Taekwoon stopped him before he could continue describing what thoughts had run through Taekwoon's subconscious mind last night.

"I'm sorry," Sanghyuk said again. "I didn't mean to invade your mind... I didn't listen to everything... only the things that you felt very strongly about slipped through the block I put up."

"I see," Taekwoon said quietly.

"While I’m apologizing for the poor way I handle confrontational situations, I also want to apologize for yesterday... I shouldn't have pushed for answers to questions you clearly did not want to answer."

"It's alright," Taekwoon told him.

"I was just curious," Sanghyuk started. "And I hope you don't think I was judging the way you live your life. I am in no position to do such a thing. If you're happy with the way you live then that's that."

Taekwoon considered what Sanghyuk was saying for a second. Was he happy with his life? His family hated him, he had no friends to speak of, and the closest thing was the spirit of his dead cat. That didn't exactly scream happiness.

"And if you're not..." Sanghyuk said quietly, looking down at the ground instead of at Taekwoon. "I hope you can find what makes you happy."

"Why this all of a sudden?" Taekwoon asked.

"I suppose you could say it's because I'm about to start a fight to the death where it's very possible that I could die without getting to say everything I want to say to you," Sanghyuk said, finally looking Taekwoon into the eye. "Or it's just because I care about your happiness."

"Why?"

"Why do I care about you?" Sanghyuk laughed. "Shall I count the ways?"

"Stop that," Taekwoon laughed, pushing at Sanghyuk shoulder.

"Alright, alright. I guess it's because you remind me, in a lot of ways, of me... and my never-ending struggle to fit in somewhere. Except, unlike me, you have the power to change all that. And I only wish the best for you."

"For the God of the dead, you're awfully charming," Taekwoon teased.

"Oh yeah?" Sanghyuk laughed. "I've been practicing."

"On who? Surely not Persephone," Taekwoon shot back.

"No, I go and talk to the ghosts that wander outside my palace, though most of them can't understand a word I'm saying."

"So how do you know you're doing a good job at charming them?"

"They don't immediately cower in my presence."

"Fair enough," Taekwoon laughed.

"So now it's my turn for a question," Sanghyuk said.

"What's that?"

"Out of anything you could have asked me, an immortal God, before going in to battle, you asked if my hair is magically styled?"

"Oh shut up," Taekwoon laughed again. "I was just curious. What else should I be curious about?"

"I don't know, but I never saw that coming."

"You should take notes," Taekwoon said. Sanghyuk gave him a confused look.

"Why?"

"Learn how to be unpredictable."

"Oh ha ha." Sanghyuk laughed, a small quiet, smile appearing on his face. "Have I ever told you how much I like you?"

"You might have mentioned it a few times."

"I'm serious, though, most mortals are so unbelievably boring. They're all usually just afraid of me, but not you."

"Disappointed?"

"Never," Sanghyuk said, a wicked smile spreading across his face.

The conversation died, the time was nearing eleven o'clock. Chanyeol would be coming any time now.

It was another five minutes when Sanghyuk pointed out a small figure approaching off in the distance. And from what Taekwoon picked up from the aura the figure gave off, the time to get ready to attack was now.

Chanyeol stopped walking about fifty feet away from Taekwoon, leaving distance between the two of them for their servants to fight it out.

"I figured you'd be the one to attack me," Chanyeol called across the way. "I just never figured you'd do it so soon."

"Well, you did try to kill me only two days ago," Taekwoon called back. "Thought I'd repay the favor, only I'm not interested in killing you."

"Do you think you can kill _me_ so easily?" Baekhyun asked, materializing next to Chanyeol out of a thousand tiny golden sparkles. He was fully dressed in armor, his bow slung around his back along with a quiver of arrows.

"The real question is," Sanghyuk began, all confidence and bravado. "How long can you stay alive?"

"Oh? And this is coming from the servant who doesn't even give off any sort of energy," Baekhyun laughed right back.

"Ah but that's so I don't drive the people around me completely mad," Sanghyuk retorted, pulling his hood over his head in one smooth motion. His face became hidden from few, nothing back a black expanse could be seen again.

"I'd like to see you try," Baekhyun challenged right back.

"Very well," Sanghyuk's voice suddenly sounded different: deeper, darker, a lot more threatening than his usual light tone of voice. It echoed around the small street, seeming to resonate within the very core of anyone who listened. Taekwoon wondered, how much Sanghyuk had really been holding back during the last fight with Taemin. "But just know you asked for this."

It was like the flood gates had been opened, and water was allowed to flood everything. Waves of what Taekwoon could only describe as pure terror crashed against anything with even a speck of magical energy. Taekwoon was suddenly immensely glad that Sanghyuk was his servant so the energy had little effect on him, but he was still jarringly taken aback by the sudden flood. And if the way Baekhyun's smile dropped from his face was any indication, he was even more so.

Instead of continuing their little chat, Baekhyun vanished from view. Sanghyuk readied his lance, just as the Archer phased back in to reality on the roof of the library. He readied his bow, a total of three golden arrows nocked, aimed straight for Sanghyuk.

"I'm not sure who you are, Lancer, but that energy... you're a servant of the Underworld," Baekhyun called to him, before releasing the arrows. Sanghyuk spun his lance, blocking each of the arrows with extreme accuracy. The golden bolts bounced off his silver bident with ease. “What are you doing out of your hell hole?”

"I was summoned just like you.” Sanghyuk laughed, sounding wholly demonic. "And you’re very close, but that statement was not quite right."

Sanghyuk dodged in a zig-zag pattern as more arrows rained down from above. Not a single one hit their mark, bouncing harmlessly on the pavement where Sanghyuk had been only a millisecond earlier.

"And what part of that was incorrect?" Baekhyun called, pulling back an arrow that glowed a bright yellow. He released it a second later, not waiting for a response from Sanghyuk before attempting to kill him once more. When the arrow hit the ground, it exploded in a blinding light, knocking Sanghyuk off balance just long enough for Baekhyun to phase away from his spot on the roof once more. He reappeared next to Sanghyuk, bow splitting into two golden blades that he swung straight down at Sanghyuk's neck.

He wasn't fast enough. Sanghyuk blocked the blades easily with his lance, pushing the enemy servant off and away from him like it were nothing.

"I am no mere servant of the Underworld," Sanghyuk said back, swinging his lance back around to hit Baekhyun. The Archer dodged the swipe nimbly, but Sanghyuk wasn't done. It was his turn to be on the attack as he flipped the lance behind his back, switched it to his left hand and took another stab at Baekhyun. The golden Archer dodged again, ducking under the blade before it could be stabbed through his chest. He slashed upward with his twin swords, hoping to catch Sanghyuk off guard. It didn't work, Sanghyuk leapt backwards out of Baekhyun's reach.

"And what would that make you then?" The Archer asked, "Not that it matters. I will destroy any creature that dares venture out from the hell hole where it belongs."

"Not that it matters?!" Sanghyuk called back, laughing in a way that was entirely too reminiscent of the way Jaehwan had been last night. "I'm offended that you think you could banish me back to my realm so easily."

Sanghyuk lunged back at the servant, aiming straight for the servant's heart. Baekhyun blocked the attack, but Sanghyuk wasn't finished. His blows came relentlessly but the Archer was able to block all of them just as easily. One well-placed attack had Baekhyun leaping away from the battle, landing in a crouched position some feet away to catch his breath.

"You sound confident, who do I have the displeasure of meeting from the disgusting depths of the Underworld?" Baekhyun asked, standing back up and reading his swords once more.

Sanghyuk laughed, lunging towards the Archer servant in another attempt to gain the upper hand. The Archer caught his lance against his swords and they were caught in a blade-lock, neither giving in against the other.

Sanghyuk leaned in close to the Archer, hoping to catch him off guard as he told him: "It's ruler."

Baekhyun’s eyes widened impossibly wide in recognition. Sanghyuk's scare tactic worked like a charm, catching the Archer servant completely off guard as Sanghyuk brought his lance around for another attack. It easily slid through Baekhyun's side, bypassing his armor and cutting the skin on his left side.

Crying out in pain, Baekhyun phases away from Sanghyuk once more. He reappeared on the other side of their battlefield, holding his side and panting heavily.

"What's wrong Archer? Afraid of the disgusting creature that crawled out of the Underworld?" Sanghyuk teased, twirling his lance mockingly.

Baekhyun stood up straight, shaking off the pain; he had more important matters to deal with than a shallow cut.

"Never, especially not the King of the disgusting creatures," he called back.

Then the two were back at it. Trading and dodging blows like they did this sort of thing every day.

Taekwoon marveled at the battle. So this was what a real battle between two servants looked like. They moved impossibly fast, and attacked even faster. Watching the two complete opposites go at it was mesmerizing. Sanghyuk's dark aura and Baekhyun's bright one only seemed to glow brighter as they kept fighting, drawing to keep fighting from one another.

He looked across the way to see Chanyeol equally as enthralled, though he looked more worried than what Taekwoon felt. It was understandable, after all. Chanyeol's servant was going up against one of the strongest deities in Greek mythology. Plus, if Hongbin was right about him, Chanyeol probably didn't have the mana to keep his servant fighting at full power for as long as it would take to face Sanghyuk. The battle must've been putting immense strain on him... hopefully it would be over before Chanyeol could get seriously hurt.

But looking at over at Chanyeol... Taekwoon noticed something. A figure, nothing more than a silhouette against the streetlights behind him. But it was gaining ground on Chanyeol.

Within the fight, Sanghyuk and Baekhyun were in another lock of blades, both trying to push the other into a compromising position. Both of their attentions were still wholly on the battle.

Taekwoon watched the figure get closer, it had to be a mage; who else would readily wander in to a fight like this?

Baekhyun pushed Sanghyuk off of him, taking a slash at his chest. It bounced off of Sanghyuk's armor effortlessly.

A crest activated as the figure got closer to Chanyeol, dull blue lines shining from across the way.

That was when Baekhyun noticed the arrival of the other mage, turning around and looking back towards his master with immense worry.

Sanghyuk stopped his attack, equally as surprised to see what was unfolding in front of him.

Taekwoon realized a bit to late what was about to happen, the figure's face coming in to view finally.

Baekhyun raced away from Sanghyuk towards his master, stepping in front of him just as the mage was readying as spell that was aimed to kill.

But it was all just a decoy... and Taekwoon was powerless to stop what came next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little cliff-hanger for you all.  
> It doesn't end happily, though. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments appreciated!


	7. Chanyeol

Chanyeol had never been a particularly talented mage. In all honesty, he was hardly even a mage at all. Most people, even the ones with not a single mage in their family, had a bit of magical ability. Never enough to cast a spell or have magical artifacts activate, but it was still there all the same.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, who came from a long lineage of talented mages, had just enough. Any less and he’d be just like any other person on the street, walking around completely and blissfully ignorant to the existence of mage craft. His older sister was infinitely more gifted than he was, overflowing with the potential to become the next powerful head of the Park family of mages.

But then, one day, she vanished.

She left nothing behind but a single note explaining that she didn’t want to live the life of a mage any longer. She’d fallen in love with a man; a man with no connection whatsoever to magic. She didn’t want to drag him along with whatever children she may have in the future into the world of mage craft.

Chanyeol’s parents were… disappointed. That was the only emotion Chanyeol ever saw them give when talking about their late daughter. They were only disappointed over the loss of a strong mage, not upset over the loss of their child.

And their disappointment only grew when they started to train their only other living heir. Chanyeol didn’t even have a fraction of the magical abilities his sister had and that became more and more evident the more his parents tried to teach him magic. He didn’t even contain the magical energy to conjure the most basic of spells. Levitation, cleansing, transcription, restoration, conjuration; nothing. It was futile and yet his parents were merciless in their teachings. He’d practice, yielding nothing, for hours on end. By the end of the day, he’d feel as if every nerve in his body was trying to rip away from him.

He just wasn’t cut out for mage craft.

But that didn’t stop his parents from trying.

The only kind of spell he was ever able to cast were the pyromantics. Fire magic. He couldn’t ever figure out exactly why, but fire came natural. Too bad that wasn’t enough to impress his parents. They saw his proficiency in fire magic as the potential to use all kinds of magic. And the fact that he couldn’t was just seen as laziness in his parents’ eyes. An ‘unwillingness’ to try and learn, an ‘unwillingness’ to put in the effort to learn.

A huge disappointment through and through.

The world of mage craft was a cruel world to live in. Children didn’t mean as much to mages as they did to people without magic. A child, to a mage, meant furthering their lineage, furthering their expertise in magic, furthering the chance of their family becoming the best. There was hardly any love or nurturing to be given to a child born into a mage family.

And no other family in this region of the world had perfected this art of raising mages as much as the Jung family.

Chanyeol practically grew up on the jealously told stories of the countless achievements of the Jung family. That family of mages had been around for even longer than Chanyeol’s, which easily explained why the Park family was always second best.

The Jung family had developed a knack for creating strong mages. And through some particularly shady means, the Park family had discovered their ways: taking the magic circuits and energy from lesser life forms and compiling them all in the next head of the family. More circuits equaled more room for power which equated to a stronger mage. It was an ancient practice, a cruel practice, an absolutely horribly painful process that apparently few survived. Fortunately for Chanyeol, his family had never perfected the art of creating homunculi, artificially created human life forms from which an abundance of magical circuits could be harvested, so Chanyeol never had to endure such a thing.

But reports from the mages’ association, the governing body of mages throughout the world, the Jung family hadn’t been creating homunculi for twenty-two years. Nor had a new head of the family been officially reported in fifty years even though their last head had died about five years ago.

Everyone had assumed that a mage just hadn’t been born to them, nor had a child been born that could take on the grueling process of having magical circuits transplanted into them. The family had always been super secretive but never completely silent like this, so it wasn’t much of a jump to assume there was no one left in the family that knew of mage craft.

This was music to the Park family’s ears. With the Jung family out of the way, it was their time to shine. The Park family could rise to the top… if only Chanyeol was more talented… if only his sister hadn’t left her responsibility on him.

The pressure was put on him tenfold when the Jung family’s head died around five years ago. He had to be the best. Had to. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. He would become their next head of the household. He would become the most powerful mage in the region.

He would just… have to try harder.

So when the three red command spells appeared on his hand one morning, even Chanyeol had been ecstatic. He had a chance to prove himself now. A chance at a happy life. A chance to be the mage his parents wanted him so badly to be.

His parents told him, when he came to them the next day with his command seals, that he would get no help from them in winning this war. Even if it was every mage’s dream to get their hands on the Holy Grail, to wish to learn everything there was to learn about magic, his parents expected Chanyeol to be able to do it on his own. A chance to prove that they hadn’t placed their faith in him wrongly.

The only help they offered was a relic, a piece of a lyre said to have belonged to the Greek God of the sun. It had been in their family for generations just in case an event like this one occurred in their home country. That was the only thing he was given. No family crest. No helpful pointers. No wishes of luck. Just a petrified piece of wood and a demand to come home the winner.

So Chanyeol was determined to do as they asked. He had to. There was no other way.

Getting the supplies to summon his servant was easy enough. So was finding the right incantation.

Too bad the actual summoning had put him in the hospital.

It had gone relatively well in the beginning. The presence of the Holy Grail was supposed to help with the summoning of a heroic spirit but the summoned familiar still needed a set amount of mana from the mage to be able to manifest fully in the real world. A set amount of mana that Chanyeol just did not have. He was very aware of how he could have actually died in his attempts to summon his servant… but he had to push through the pain. He had to.

The last thing he remembers from the night he summoned Apollo, God of the Sun, was blinding bright, gold light and a rather worried face attached to warm arms that stopped him from falling to the floor.

Needless to say, Chanyeol wasn’t very surprised when he woke up alone in a hospital room. His parents had said they weren’t going to offer him any help and it was probably for the better if they never found out that summoning his servant put him in the hospital. Whatever small amount of faith they might still have for his success would have faded instantly upon hearing that bit of information.

A few nurses told him that a nice young man had brought him into the hospital, saying that he found him passed out on the streets. Chronic fatigue syndrome they told him. Or in mage craft terms, he’d overexerted his mana reserves and almost died as a repercussion. Chanyeol wondered fleetingly as the nurse left the room, answering another patient’s call, who it was that had brought him to the hospital if his parents hadn’t. He knew he hadn’t been passed out on the streets, he’d been in his house. So in all actuality, the only person it could have been was the man he’d summoned.

His answer came not even a second after the door closed to his room in the hospital. A man appeared out of practically nowhere in a flash of bright light. Chanyeol held back the scream that threatened to erupt at being startled in such a way, feeling a strange sense of calm. For a reason completely unknown to him, he could tell the man would not hurt him under any circumstances.

He wasn’t nearly as tall as Chanyeol himself, rather small but with long legs and a strong body. His face was chiseled but still had an air of child-like roundness to it; like he was forever stuck as a young man. He was dressed in what Chanyeol recognized as some of his old clothing that didn’t fit quite right anymore, but it seemed to fit the man rather well. He smiled confidently at him, blindingly bright and rather mischievous. He’d introduced himself then.

“Apollo, God of the Sun and bunch of other things, at your service, Master.” He took a bow. “But I rather like the name Baekhyun, I think that’d help me blend in more, yeah?”

In turn, Chanyeol had shakily introduced himself to his servant. He could hardly believe he was actually able to summon and maintain such a high level familiar. Nothing else had lasted this long, so in all honesty he had no idea where to go from here.

During his week-long hospital stay, Baekhyun was his only visitor. That wasn’t really surprising though. Baekhyun was tied to him so he couldn’t just leave and his parents probably hadn’t even noticed he was missing, which suited him just fine. Less lectures about the importance of becoming a strong mage and more time spent talking to Baekhyun about their situation.

Baekhyun was an Archer class servant, meaning he was one of the stronger three classes. But even with that standing, there were more than a few problems with their current situation besides the fact that Chanyeol was stuck in a hospital. Even at full strength, Chanyeol hardly had enough mana for his servant to fight at full power for very long. He was ashamed to admit his ineptitude to someone so obviously powerful and yet, Baekhyun had been extremely understanding. He wasn’t angry that he was stuck with a failure of a mage for a master nor was he disappointed or upset.

“If anything, I’m glad. Mages are such slimy creatures. Only ever out for themselves no matter the circumstances.”

Chanyeol had cleared his throat, feeling offended because even if he wasn’t very adept he was still a mage by the technical definition. Baekhyun only laughed at that.

“But you’re not so slimy. Maybe your lack of abilities has something to do with that but I at least know you won’t resort to dirty tricks to win.”

Baekhyun had kept him company at the hospital, chatting idly with him even if he wasn’t technically allowed to have visitors that weren’t family passed a certain time.

They talked of their plans for the war. How Baekhyun had discovered that all but one mage had been chosen to fight in the Holy Grail war. Chanyeol guessed that spot would have gone to a mage from the Jung family if they had one. But since they didn’t, the Holy Grail was probably scrambling to find a replacement. They couldn’t yet tell what servant classes had already been summoned and which was the only one left but they both figured it was probably one of the lesser classes: Caster, Rider, Assassin. Classes like Lancer, Saber, and Archer tended to get claimed rather quickly.

They also spoke of their wishes for the Holy Grail. It was obvious what Chanyeol would want from the Grail. To become more powerful, to be the next head the Park family needed, to finally get acceptance, his parents approval. But Baekhyun’s reasoning was less clear. Chanyeol couldn’t think of anything regretful in the stories of Apollo… but perhaps that was the problem.

Baekhyun, like Chanyeol, wanted recognition.

“When people think of Apollo, a fierce warrior doesn’t really come to mind now does it? You think of the sun, or music, prophecies and poetry. My siblings- Athena, Aries, even my own twin sister Artemis- are all renowned warriors. Skilled with weapons and famous for their proficiency with them. Yet… No one remembers that I am just as skilled as the rest of them. And even if the odd human does remember my proficiency with the bow, it’s usually a forethought after thinking of everything else. I know it’s petty and rather childish, but that’s what I want. To be treated with the same respect as all the other warriors.” Baekhyun wouldn’t look at him as he finished speaking. Chanyeol took in a shaky breath, trying to sit up as much as he could in his very weakened state.

“I understand,” he told Baekhyun through a whisper. “Let’s win us some recognition together.”

Baekhyun had smiled at him then. White teeth and dimpled cheeks, crinkled eyes with a blindingly bright light. Chanyeol had looked away, embarrassed at being the sole receiver to such a look.

“First things first, you need to get better.” Baekhyun tapped Chanyeol’s chin to force him to look up at him once more. “Then, we’ll start on our way to victory.”

So, Chanyeol listened to the orders his servant gave him. He spent his week in the hospital slowly regaining the small bit of mana he’d overextended summoning Baekhyun.

The night he was released was a rather pleasant one. It was strangely warm for a November night, with a small fog rolling in from off the damp grass. It was late, close to midnight but Chanyeol didn’t mind. At least when he got home, his parents would be asleep and therefore none the wiser to his hospital stay. Though, he figured the bill would come up eventually, but their accountant handled most of those things. He was praying the woman wouldn’t say anything to his parents.

But as they kept walking back home, Chanyeol quickly sensed that the bill to his hospital stay was the least of his worries. There were two mages nearby… maybe a block away. Two mages but only one singular servant. Though, considering the amount of energy pouring off one of the mages, Chanyeol found it hard to believe he or she was actually human.

Baekhyun had sensed it too, immediately tuning in to the battle that was about to happen a short way away. He instructed Chanyeol to stay where he was before he disappeared. He reappeared on the roof of a nearby building, relaying the details of the battle back to Chanyeol. There was a mage… facing down a servant, Caster. The mage didn’t have a servant, he stood alone. The other mage was hidden behind a building, watching and waiting for something Chanyeol didn’t understand. Chanyeol probably figured that the one without the servant was the last one chosen by the grail. How he was so powerful was lost to Chanyeol but he didn’t have much time to fret on the matter. The Caster servant attacked the servant-less mage, flames billowing towards him. But the mage easily blocked it, blinding white shield covering the entirety of the street. Chanyeol could even see it from where he stood a way away, the battle separated by a couple buildings even. He didn’t waste any time then. He called Baekhyun back to him and the two of them got out of that area as fast as he could possibly move.

That mage. The one Baekhyun said hadn’t had a servant with him was extremely powerful. And there was no telling what that Caster servant and his master was capable of. He was in no position to fight; he hadn’t prepared himself for this.

The very real threat of death sunk it’s claws in deep as Chanyeol ran the entire way back to his home. And only when he was inside safely, did his anxiety lessen up enough for him to somewhat breathe properly again.

Who was the mage that had so easily defected Caster’s magic? Heroic spirits were supposed to be one of the strongest creatures a mage could encounter. That’s why every mage participating in a Holy Grail war summoned a servant. So powerful beings could do all the fighting with little to no consequence and there was hardly a threat to a mage’s life. If one didn’t summon a servant there was no way they could win since all the other’s servants would easily take them out.

But that mage… a mage without a servant… a mage that didn’t back away from a fight with such a powerful familiar… a mage that was able to stand his ground.

That completely terrified Chanyeol.

How was he ever going to win with an inhuman mage like that in this battle?

Chanyeol sunk to the floor of his house, back braced against his front door. Baekhyun looked down at him, a look of immense worry on his face. He crouched down to be eye level with him, opening his mouth while looking as if he wanted to say a million things in only a couple comforting words. But he never got the chance.

Almost the second he started to say something, Chanyeol’s mother came rushing in the room. And in a moment, Chanyeol was taken completely off guard for the second time that night. She looked worried as she practically ran at him, face twisted and usually graceful and composed movements sloppy and flailing. She held a sheet of paper in her hand, tightly clenching her fist around the singular sheet of paper.

Apparently, while Chanyeol was running away from the battle between the mage and the Caster type servant, his family had been sent a message from another mage. Chanyeol’s father came in the room next, looking just as grim as his mother. He informed Chanyeol first of what he already knew. The seventh mage of the Holy Grail war had been chosen and he’s actually a mage and not some random person off the street the Grail chose simply because it needed someone else. No, this was a full blown and extremely powerful mage.

And to top it all off, he’s the Jung family’s new head.

How they were able to hide such a powerful mage from the rest of the world for so long was a complete mystery. How the Jung’s were able to produce a mage at all was a complete mystery since, as far as they could tell, they hadn’t been practicing their ancient craft of creating mages for twenty some odd years.

Chanyeol listened to everything his parents told him. This was the first time he’d seen them so distraught. So frazzled. The picture of composure usually, but now a complete mess.

The only saving grace so far was that it looked like the man hadn’t summoned a servant as of yet. His parents instructed him harshly then. He had to kill the man before he could summon a servant. The servant the Jung mage would summon would be of the Lancer class, the last one to be summoned for this war. And if that happened… with one of the three strongest servants on his side and the inhuman amount of magical circuits… he’d be unstoppable.

The words: “kill him” echoed in Chanyeol’s head, ringing in his ears until he could hear nothing else. He was only nineteen years old… he couldn’t kill someone… he couldn’t become a murderer.

And his distress got even worse when his parents told him the name of the mage: Jung Taekwoon. He knew Taekwoon. He saw him every Tuesday, Thursday and the occasional Saturday.

He was quiet, a little awkward to talk to, and incredibly intimidating if you didn’t know him very well, but he wasn’t a bad guy. Chanyeol enjoyed his company on the off occasion that they actually talked. How could his parents actually suggest, actually demand, him to kill another human being? Isn’t that why they summoned servants? So no one had to die?

There was no way he could do this… and yet he didn’t have much of a choice… if he wanted to become the mage his parents always wanted.

When his parents finally left him to his own devices, Chanyeol retreated to his room. He threw himself on his bed and finally just let the tears flow. He felt Baekhyun materialize beside him but he didn’t particularly care.

He couldn’t do this.

He couldn’t be the mage everyone wanted.

Not because for his lack of abilities.

Nor his ‘unwillingness’ to learn.

But because he wasn’t willing to become a monster. He couldn’t be heartless. He couldn’t kill someone who had never done anything wrong. He couldn’t kill an innocent mage just for a chance at winning.

Baekhyun had pulled him close after Chanyeol let all his inner turmoil be known. He held him close. Let him cry against his chest. Stoked his hair and whispered sweet words until he calmed down enough to whisper out apologies.

“What are you apologizing for?” Baekhyun said sadly. He didn’t look down at him with pity in his eyes but rather understanding.

“I’m not… I’m not cut out for this,” Chanyeol admitted. “I don’t want to… to kill Taekwoon. I can’t do something like that.”

Baekhyun didn’t say anything for a long while, just rocking the both of them back and forth for a few silent moments.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything… we can just make an appearance… say we tried but he was too strong. Just let me handle it.”

“Why…” Chanyeol started. “Why are you doing this for me? There’s no way we’ll win if we let him live.”

“Yes but,” Baekhyun started, pulling away a little bit to look at Chanyeol again. “I’d rather live in my silent shame for the rest of my existence than see you become something you don’t want to be.”

Fresh tears started falling down Chanyeol’s cheeks at Baekhyun’s words.

“Thank you,” he whispered, grabbing on to Baekhyun again. “Thank you,” he kept repeating.

Baekhyun pressed his lips to Chanyeol’s forehead, laying them both down on the bed so that Chanyeol could get some sleep. He didn’t move from his spot the entire night and Chanyeol had never felt more relaxed with another person by his side before in his life.

The next day found Chanyeol watching Taekwoon and some guy he’d never seen before sit outside the library, coffees in hand while they took a break from the student librarian job. Baekhyun missed the first shot on purpose, cussing loudly to alert the other mage of their position. Chanyeol watched in awe as Baekhyun was easily able to make a fake attack. All they needed was for Taekwoon to cast a higher-lever spell so that every mage in the city would feel the energy and there’d be no doubt that Chanyeol’s retreat was a good idea.

But then the Berserker servant appeared, seemingly come to protect Taekwoon. How any of this fit together, Chanyeol really couldn’t understand. Taekwoon didn’t even have a servant and yet the man had already been able to find people to back him up.

They retreated soon after Baekhyun had clashed blades with the Berserker class servant. There was no way they’d be able to take on someone like him by themselves. Even the Saber class servant would have an issue in a one on one against a Berserker. And on top of that, neither Chanyeol nor Baekhyun liked the aura surrounding that servant. Something ancient and entirely too foreboding. Something that shouldn’t be fought alone.

And the next time they ran into the Berserker servant- when Rider was trying to trick them all into turning against Taekwoon- they saw the full force of what the Berserker servant could do. He was completely unhinged and Baekhyun had demanded that Chanyeol run as far away from this area as he could go in order to protect himself. Chanyeol had never seen Baekhyun look so serious, so he obeyed without a second thought. The Berserker went after Baekhyun, yelling about how they didn’t get to finish their last battle. But before the servant could reach Baekhyun he collapsed to the ground and disappeared completely. Chanyeol thanked whatever deity would listen that the Berserker servant’s master had called him back to wherever he was hiding. Had Baekhyun clashed with that servant in the state he was in, there was no way the Archer would survive.

When they finally went home that night, Chanyeol was left with such a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew, deep down and for some irrational reason he knew, that he would be the first one targeted by the four-way alliance that had been formed. It made sense, after all. He had one of the strongest three servants, a ranged attacker at that. And though his magical skills weren’t top notch, they were enough to support a strong servant for long enough. They were a threat and an easy target all at the same time. And if it wasn’t them now, it would be after the Saber servant was taken down. And after Rider’s failed attempt at getting the rest of them to band together against the four-way alliance, Chanyeol had little hope for an alliance with the other masters.

He told Baekhyun of his worries. They really hadn’t had much of a chance do much in this war, what with Chanyeol being in the hospital for so long. But he hadn’t expected to fail so quickly. He knew, some part of him always knew, that there was no possible way he was going to win this thing. But he hadn’t counted on getting close to his servant, getting to know the person behind the myth and legend, finding someone who understood him on a deeper level unlike anyone else. What was he going to do from now on? Now that he’d had a taste of what it felt like to have someone who cared for him? He couldn’t keep living the life his parents wanted of him without losing himself in the process. He didn’t want to become a monster just to please his parents.

“Hey,” Baekhyun started, rushing forward to latch on to Chanyeol’s chest, arms wrapped around his middle as tightly as he possibly could without hurting the taller. His head rested just under Chanyeol’s chin. He returned the hug easily after he figured out what was going on, holding the smaller male who needed the comfort just as much as Chanyeol did. The feelings Chanyeol had were mutual, neither of them wanted to lose someone who understood them. Someone they cared very deeply about. “It’s okay.”

And for a moment, it was. For a moment, everything in the world seemed right, seemed bearable, with Baekhyun in his arms. Remembering what Baekhyun had done for him the previous night, Chanyeol pressed a light kiss to his familiar’s forehead, feather light and comforting.

“You missed…” Baekhyun said, pulling away from Chanyeol to look up at him.

“What are you talk-“ His question was cut off when Baekhyun pulled him down to kiss him fully on the lips. It was chaste and sweet and full of feeling. Chanyeol never wanted to let go and Baekhyun was all to content to never force him to.

“It’ll be okay,” Baekhyun whispered as Chanyeol fell asleep. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Chanyeol knew Baekhyun couldn’t uphold that promise forever. So when the two of them met Taekwoon and his servant on the battle field the next day, Chanyeol was ready. He was ready to face the fact that he’d have to let go of his light. Especially when the Lancer servant revealed his true identity: Hades.

They were doomed.

How anyone was able to uphold a servant of such power for so long was completely foreign to Chanyeol. Hades was absolutely terrifying to watch fight. It almost felt like he was holding back against Baekhyun, holding back the immense amount of power hiding beneath his cloak. Just playing with the servant he was fighting, prolonging the battle for as long as possible. But even with that established, Baekhyun was still having a tough time. He held his own, but even with his impeccable fighting techniques, Chanyeol couldn’t keep up with the mana his servant needed to keep fighting. He knew he was going to lose this battle… he’d just never have guessed foul play to be the reason.

Taekwoon was a good guy so Chanyeol expected a fair fight. Not another mage sneaking up behind him to make an attempt at his life. His servant noticed the arrival before he did. Disengaging from the battle with Hades to run back towards his master. Chanyeol turned around, noticing the absolutely shocked expression on Taekwoon’s face as the mage prepared to take a shot at him.

He saw the other mage. It was a boy, just a teenager maybe only a year younger than him. But that was the least of their worries.

With Baekhyun between him and the other mage, the other mage backed off completely. Jumping back a few feet with the aid of a spell, seeming to get out of the range of his servant’s blades… but also away from what was about to happen next.

It happened so fast, Chanyeol could hardly process what he was seeing fast enough. Baekhyun stood in front of him confidently, protecting him from whatever the other mage had in store. Neither of them suspected the mage to have only been a decoy for another servant coming their way.

Red flew through the air, spattering against Chanyeol’s front, a few flecks across his face. A curved blade protruded through Baekhyun’s back, clean through his front and out the back. No one made a sound, nothing could be heard except for the sickening sound of metal sliding out of flesh.

Baekhyun collapsed to the ground once the blade was removed. Chanyeol reacted just fast enough to catch him and fall with him to the ground. Looking back up towards the servant that had just killed his servant, he saw the Berserker servant where the mage had been only moments before. He spun his scythe around a few times, looking rather upset for reasons Chanyeol couldn’t even begin to understand at the moment. He bowed his head to Chanyeol, refusing the look up from where his eyes were trained on the ground before disappearing from sight all together.

It was then that Chanyeol became aware of the fact that he was screaming. Crying with tears cascading down his face as he held Baekhyun’s shivering form in his arms.

“Shhh,” Baekhyun hushed. “I’ll live,” he joked, laughing quietly. It sounded painful. Chanyeol let out a choked laugh in response.

“I don’t think anyone can heal this,” Chanyeol admitted quietly.

“It’s alright,” he whispered back. “Promise me something… before I go.”

“Anything.”

“Think of me sometime?” Baekhyun asked. “Whenever you look at the sun?”

Chanyeol let out another sob, but nodded.

“Of course… and think of your amazing skill with a bow.”

Baekhyun smiled up at him, bringing a hand to Chanyeol’s cheek. His presence was starting to fade. His form seeming to disappear right before Chanyeol’s eyes.

“You’re a good guy, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun whispered. “Find something to make you happy.”

His hand slipped from Chanyeol’s face, leaving a bloody hand print behind right before he disappeared completely. Chanyeol gripped his sides, hugging a body that was no long there close to his heart. He had found something to make him happy… and he had just died in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long wait, but this chapter was a little tricky to write. Anyway:   
> Thanks for reading!  
> All comments appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am seriously sorry for such a long wait. My coursework had completely taken all of my attention and I just couldn't find the time to sit down a write. But now I'm on summer break and you all should expect a bit more of regular update schedule. Thanks for sticking with me! I have not abandoned by stories.

The heart-wrenching sobs echoed around the silent street as both Taekwoon and Sanghyuk stood completely still, trying to piece together exactly what had happened in only a matter of seconds.

Chanyeol knelt on the pavement, arms wrapped around his own torso as if trying to hold someone that was no longer there. His entire frame shook with sobs, his head hung towards the ground and blood that was not his own soaked his clothes. A couple feet away from him stood Hongbin, his face contorted in a conflicted look about the outcome of his carefully calculated plan. Taekwoon knew this trick had to be Hongbin’s creation. Everyone else had been too uncomfortable with the idea of resorting to a nasty trick to win the battle.

Chanyeol’s cries reached Taekwoon’s ears again and a newfound wave of anger washed over him. How dare Hongbin? Sure, the ultimate ending would’ve been the same but at least that’s what everyone expected to happen. A fair fight, a clean death. But instead, Chanyeol was left tear-stained and covered in his friend’s blood.

Taekwoon didn’t even hesitate once the situation became clear to him. He strode determinately across the used-to-be battlefield, past Sanghyuk who watched as if he knew exactly what was going through Taekwoon’s mind. He pulled back his hood, a matching look of frustration and annoyance on his now revealed face. Taekwoon walked past Chanyeol, who had yet to get off the ground, and right up to Hongbin. Without even thinking about it, Taekwoon felt his crest activate with his emotions, an immeasurable amount of energy dancing across his fingertips. He grabbed the teen’s jacket collar, pulling him up close to his face to be eye level. He raised his right hand, his crest threating the other teen in case he tried to pull anything.

“What the fuck was that?” Taekwoon practically yelled at Hongbin. He looked positively terrified under Taekwoon’s gaze, eyes flickering from Taekwoon’s face to the tons of swirling blue lines that were etched all along Taekwoon’s half exposed arm. He definitely hadn’t expected Taekwoon to react like this.

“How dare you…” Hakyeon shrieked as he materialized beside the two of them, instantly preparing a spell to throw at Taekwoon for even attempting to hurt his master. But his threat died on his tongue as Sanghyuk was on him in an instant, bident pointed directly at Hakyeon’s throat, poised to strike at even the slightest movement. Hakyeon’s magic dispelled from his hand from the sudden threat of death.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Sanghyuk warned quietly. Hakyeon looked at him with a fierce defiance in his eyes but he complied regardless.

“What. The fuck. Was that?” Taekwoon repeated a little slower this time so there was no chance for a misunderstanding. Hongbin opened his mouth as if to say something but no words came out. He looked completely terrified, as if he were afraid Taekwoon would actually hurt, or even worse, kill him.

“I’m not going to ask again,” he warned, bringing his hand, alight with magical energy, a little closer to Hongbin’s face. He flinched away from it, as if expecting a strike.

“Stop it!” Hakyeon shouted suddenly. Taekwoon hadn’t seen the servant look so full of emotion in the entire time he knew him. “He was only doing what I told him to!”

Taekwoon was taken aback.

“What you told him to do?” He asked, not letting go of Hongbin but lowering his hand from the teen’s face. Sanghyuk’s grip on his weapon tightened and he pressed the two-pointed prongs of his weapon a little closer to Hakyeon’s throat.

“Yes, this whole thing was my plan,” Hakyeon said, eyes flitting between Taekwoon and the lance at his throat.

Taekwoon looked from Hongbin- the boy looked close to tears- to Hakyeon, who looked dreadfully concerned for Hongbin’s safety despite how easy it would be for Sanghyuk to kill him where he stood. He let go of Hongbin’s jacket and the teen collapsed to the ground, tears collecting in his eyes. Hakyeon immediately moved to comfort him but Taekwoon stepped in his way before he could. Hakyeon easily met his challenge, stepping close into Taekwoon’s personal space. They were eye to eye. Taekwoon waved off Sanghyuk’s defense and his servant understood, twirling his lance around his back away from Hakyeon and moving to stand behind Taekwoon.

“I came up with the plan, I made Jaehwan attack Archer, I told Hongbinnie to act as a distraction. My orders. My plan,” Hakyeon said.

“You’re going through an awful lot of effort to make that painfully clear,” Taekwoon shot right back.

“Because it was my idea, not Hongbin’s,” Hakyeon affirmed again.

“Regardless of who’s plan it was,” Taekwoon started carefully, looking from Hakyeon to where Hongbin was beginning to collect himself on the ground. “If it happens again, without my knowledge of this sort of plan being made, I will personally see to it that it doesn’t happen again. Are we clear?”

“Hongbin had noth…”

“Are we clear?” Taekwoon asked again, cutting off anymore of Hakyeon’s defenses.

“You’re not my Master, who made you my boss?” Hakyeon challenged, the defiance was clear in the way he held himself, chin held high and eyes glaring.

“I did, just now,” Taekwoon said. “You got a problem…”

“We can have some fun,” Sanghyuk easily finished, a mischievous smile on his face. One that didn’t bode well for the recipient of such a look.

“Are we clear?” Taekwoon asked once more.

“Crystal,” Hakyeon grumbled before disappearing into a thousand purple specks.

Taekwoon sighed deeply and shakily. The tough guy act was starting to weigh on him. He wasn’t cut out for this. He’d never been so thankful for his ‘poker face’ before this exact moment; it made acting as if he wasn’t completely terrified out of his mind a little easier.

He turned to Hongbin, offering him a hand and pulling him up off the ground when he took it.

“You all right?” Taekwoon asked quietly. Hongbin shook his head ‘yes’ but offered nothing else as he wiped at his eyes as casually as he could, trying not to draw attention to the fact that tears had started freely falling from his eyes. Taekwoon wanted to feel bad for him but then he remembered the mess that his plan made of everything and the feelings faded. “Get back to the manor, I’ll meet you all there and we’ll discuss our options on how to proceed.”

“We can still stay?” Hongbin asked, looking up at Taekwoon extremely shocked.

“We’re still a team. And I’m not about to kick a couple kids to the curb when they’re involved in a war to the death.”

Hongbin looked at Taekwoon as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Now get going, before another servant shows up.”

Hongbin nodded before taking off down the street towards Taekwoon’s home.

“You’re too kind-hearted for your own good,” Sanghyuk’s voice rang through Taekwoon’s head.

“Don’t remind me.”

“But I mean… it makes you kind of cute.”

“Shut up,” Taekwoon hissed, blushing despite himself. “Can you just go watch the house? Make sure none of them do anything stupid,” Taekwoon then asked aloud.

“Of course, Master,” Sanghyuk said, purring out the words like he does every time he knows he’s won. Taekwoon rolled his eyes, not even bothering with a response. But even no response at all was enough of a response for Sanghyuk. He laughed melodiously as he melted into the shadows and disappeared from sight, hopefully going to do what Taekwoon had asked of him.

Then, with Sanghyuk gone, Taekwoon turned his attention to Chanyeol. The poor man was still a mess on the ground a little ways away. He wasn’t sobbing anymore but tears still clearly cascaded down his cheeks as he sat starring emptily at the pavement in front of him. He felt around his pockets until he found a small square of fabric his mother had told him to always carry. He knelt down in front of Chanyeol; the younger didn’t even move. Taekwoon held out the handkerchief to him. He still didn’t move and Taekwoon considered taking a different approach to this situation. But then Chanyeol sniffed once more, wiped under his nose with his wrist, and then reached for the piece of fabric Taekwoon held out to him.

He wiped at the blood, left behind by his servant, on his cheek. When he got it all, he looked down at the now bloodied piece of cloth in his hands and broke down into a new fit of tears.

Taekwoon’s heart went out to him. His servant, Baekhyun, must have really meant a lot to him. Taekwoon wasn’t sure if he’d be able to handle seeing Sanghyuk dying in a similar fashion… not that he’d ever tell his servant that, though. So, he reached out for Chanyeol, pulling him close in a feeble attempt to comfort him since Taekwoon didn’t think there was anything he could say at this point to help. The boy hugged him back, latching on to him like his life depended on it.

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon apologized quietly. Chanyeol pulled away after a minute, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He shook his head before shakily saying:

“You don’t need to apologize. Baekhyun… I… He was going to… to die one way or another tonight. Whether it was by your servant’s hand or another’s…”

Chanyeol sniffed again, looking sadly down at his blood-stained clothes.

“It didn’t have to happen like that,” Taekwoon countered.

“That’s how mages fight, isn’t it? With dirty tricks and cowardly plots.”

To Taekwoon, he sounded as if he were quoting someone. He wondered if maybe it was Baekhyun who told him that. Taekwoon chuckled quietly, recalling that Sanghyuk had said something very similar on a number of occasions.

“Funny you should say that,” he started. “Sanghyuk… my servant, told me the same thing once.”

A small, sad smile spread across Chanyeol’s lips, as if remembering a distant, but happy memory.

“Baekhyun called us slimy creatures…” The smile faded off Chanyeol’s face. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

Taekwoon nodded, waiting for Chanyeol to continue.

“We’ve never really talked that much… but I know you’re not a bad guy.” Chanyeol’s voice shook with the held back tears. “I’m sorry we attacked you the other day… I didn’t want to. Baekhyun purposefully missed on the first shot, but my parents were expecting me to win. They wanted me to kill you. I… I couldn’t do that… I’ve never been a very good mage… I didn’t want to be a mage in the first place.”

“H-hey,” Taekwoon started quietly, placing a hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder in attempt to calm his panicking. Chanyeol looked up at Taekwoon with tears collecting in his eyes once more but stopped his panicked rambling. “Come on, let’s get you out of the street… get you cleaned up, yeah?”

“Where? Your place?” Chanyeol asked. “Why would you do something like that? I-I-I tried to kill you. I was your enemy, a monster.”

“No,” Taekwoon disagreed, standing up off the ground. He offered a hand to Chanyeol. He took it, but looked completely dumbfounded as Taekwoon pulled him up off the ground to his feet.

“You said it yourself, you didn’t want to kill me and you didn’t despite what your parents told you to do.”

“But I could’ve…”

“But you didn’t,” Taekwoon countered again. “Now come on. It’s cold out and you being covered in blood would be a bit hard to explain away if anyone were to see you.”

Chanyeol nodded slowly. He looked at a loss for words, but followed Taekwoon down the street regardless.

They didn’t talk on the walk back to Taekwoon’s house. Taekwoon wasn’t exactly sure what to talk about and he guessed Chanyeol would prefer to stay quiet and grieve the loss of his servant for a little longer anyway. When they arrived, Taekwoon scoured his room for clothes that could fit Chanyeol and then he sat the two of them down in the dining room with an order placed with his chef for some tea.

And with the tea cooling between his hands, Chanyeol finally spoke up.

“Why are you doing this?” He asked.

“Because that fight shouldn’t have ended the way it did.”

“Yeah, but you still didn’t have to do this,” Chanyeol continued. “What kind of mage are you?”

“What?” The question didn’t quite make sense to Taekwoon. What did he mean by that? Was what Taekwoon doing really that out of the ordinary? Regardless of if Chanyeol was an opposing mage, he was still a person and didn’t deserve to be left in the street, covered in blood, crying hysterically.

“Those stereotypes both our servants complained aren’t just perceived notions. Mages aren’t exactly the most empathetic people on this planet. They’re not supposed to help their enemies, they’re not supposed to feel remorse for their actions when they’re furthering their family’s agenda, they’re not supposed to empathize with their enemies…”

Taekwoon got the impression that Chanyeol was talking more about himself than him at this point.

“Then… I guess I’m not really a mage,” Taekwoon stated. Chanyeol looked at him as if he had just denounced his entire family, completely at a loss for what to say. “I’m going to be honest, I didn’t exactly want to live this life either. I got sucked into this this world when these seals appeared on my hand earlier this week.”

“Hold on a second,” Chanyeol cut him off, shock taken over by confusion. “You’re telling me you haven’t had any sort of formal training? How the hell are you so powerful?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Taekwoon shrugged, Chanyeol only continued to stare at him in disbelief. “So I guess that makes the whole ‘being my own person’ thing easier since I don’t have my parents pressuring me to be this ‘amazing new head of the family’. But either way, I’m not going to change who I am just to be a mage, so I guess the world is just going to have to deal with that. Losing yourself, despising what you’ve become really isn’t worth the approval of your parents.”

Chanyeol didn’t say anything in response to Taekwoon’s attempted pep talk. Chanyeol needed it. The man was clearly struggling to hold on to himself in the world he was living in. Taekwoon wanted to offer more but there wasn’t anything he really could do if Chanyeol wasn’t willing to go against what had been ingrained in him since the first day he started training to become a mage. So hopefully, a few motivational words would provide the push the younger man needed.

He stood up suddenly, looking less sad than before and a lot more determined. To do what, Taekwoon wasn’t sure, but it was better than the defeated look he wore only moments before.

“Thank you, Taekwoon… for everything, but I think I should go home now,” Chanyeol said, beginning to walk back towards the foyer. Taekwoon stood as well, following after Chanyeol as he made to leave.

They stopped by the front door before Chanyeol left completely.

“Are you going to be okay?” Taekwoon asked. Chanyeol shrugged.

“I’m not sure… but I think I will be.” He started, he paused for a second before continuing with what he wanted to say. “You have to win this thing, Taekwoon, you’re the best of us all.”

And with that, he exited the front door, leaving before Taekwoon could say anything in response.

He sighed deeply, leaning against his front door for support after it had been pulled close along with Chanyeol. He felt completely drained; his limbs weighed down by rocks, his joints stiff and his entire body aching. He wanted nothing more than to go upstairs to his room, collapse in his bed and not wake up for a few days. But he couldn’t exactly do that at this moment. For one, he wasn’t sure if he’d actually be able to fall asleep after seeing someone murdered right before his eyes. Sure, it was only a familiar, but a high-level familiar that looked, moved, and thought exactly like any other human being. So as far as Taekwoon was concerned, he saw an actual person get murdered. And secondly, he still had to deal with the three teenagers and their servants that were presumably somewhere around Taekwoon’s house. And he definitely wasn’t going to let what happened tonight slide. Whether it was actually Hakyeon’s plan or not, Hongbin still went behind Taekwoon’s back, somehow managed to drag Jaehwan into the mess, and resorted to a disgusting trick when one wasn’t necessary.

He groaned quietly to himself just thinking about how upset this whole situation made him. Why did all this have to happen? Why couldn’t someone else have been chosen for this stupid war? Why did the other participants in the war have to be children?

He rubbed at his face before pushing himself off the door. Yes, his situation sucked but standing around moping about it wasn’t going to solve anything. First thing was first, he wanted a change of clothes for himself. Then, he’d gather the members of his ‘alliance’ and set everything straight. The sooner he got that out of the way, the sooner he could go to bed and hopefully forget about everything for just a couple hours.

Climbing the stairs and going to his room proved to be more of a challenge than he thought it would be. He was so incredibly exhausted. But he made it there and managed to slowly change his clothes. And as he sat down to relax for just a second before facing his alliance, Sanghyuk appeared from out of the shadows on the other side of Taekwoon’s bedroom.

“You look like hell,” Sanghyuk said; the smile he had worn as he appeared slowly faded from his face as he took in Taekwoon’s appearance. “And that’s gotta mean something because I live there so I know what it looks like.”

Taekwoon laughed bitterly.

“Gee thanks, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear right now.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you, you were still hot? With your hair a mess like that and everything?” Sanghyuk teased.

“No, it really doesn’t,” Taekwoon responded bitterly, rubbing at his eyes again, and running a hand through his messy hair. Sanghyuk walked across the room to stand directly in front of Taekwoon.

“Are you okay?” Sanghyuk asked, usual playfulness gone from his tone. He looked so concerned as he placed a hand on Taekwoon’s shoulder.

“No,” Taekwoon admitted. “But I will be. Where is everyone?”

“Hoseok and Hyungwon are in the library. I think Hoseok’s doing homework of all things and Hyungwon’s helping him. Wonsik and Jaehwan are in the lounge making themselves at home. I don’t think Wonsik knows what happened and Jaehwan looks rather torn up. But whether that’s from what he did or from whatever they told him would happen to his master if he didn’t do it.”

“And Hongbin?”

“In his room with his servant. I think you really scared him back there…”

Taekwoon only nodded in response and the conversation died. But Sanghyuk didn’t move away, his hand moved slowly down from his shoulder to his arm before slipping away completely. An idea suddenly made its way into Taekwoon’s head. A conversation they had earlier, an offer he had, at the time, turned down. An offer that he could really use right about now.

“Sanghyuk?”

“Yes, Master?”

“I could use a really good stress reliver right about now.”

“What?” Sanghyuk looked genuinely surprised. Taekwoon was very proud of the fact that he was able to leave the ever-mischievous servant completely at a loss for words for once instead of the other way around. “You… Are you… You don’t mean…?”

Taekwoon only nodded; Sanghyuk flushed, audibly taking in air from the sudden desire.

“Hold on a second,” Sanghyuk said quickly. “Is this because you genuinely want to or because of what happened?”

“Bit of both probably. What does it matter? What’s changed between earlier today when you originally offered and now?” Taekwoon shot back.

“Well for one, you watched someone get killed.”

“Sanghyuk, please,” Taekwoon said. He meant it to sound more tired and exasperated but he hated that it actually came out sounding more like a whine.

“I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret later…”

“But I won’t… didn’t you read my dream’s all night long last night?”

Sanghyuk laughed at that.

“Yes… I did… You’re never going to let me forget.”

“You’ve gotta be just as exhausted as I am? Don’t you think it would be mutually beneficial…?”

“Yeah… maybe.”

“And you even asked me not to keep you waiting too long, right?”

“Look at you, being all smooth,” Sanghyuk teased, smirking down at Taekwoon as if he were proud. “All right, I’ll cut you a deal, you get one kiss.”

“One kiss?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed now,” Sanghyuk laughed. “It’s better than nothing.”

“I guess that’ll have to work.”

Taekwoon conceded, it certainly was better than nothing. He surged upward off the bed, onto his feet and as close to Sanghyuk as possible. He grabbed either side of Sanghyuk’s face with his hands and crushed their lips together. Sanghyuk immediately responded, wrapping his arms around Taekwoon’s waist and meeting him with equal intensity. In one fluid motion, Taekwoon pulled them both backwards and spun them mid-air so that Sanghyuk landed on the bed and Taekwoon landed on top of him. Their lips never once left the other’s as they settled into a fast-paced rhythm, tongues mingling and teethe teasing at each other’s lips.

Taekwoon carded his hands through Sanghyuk’s hair, soft to the touch and silky smooth. Sanghyuk’s hands made their way up into Taekwoon’s shirt, gripping his bare hips tightly with warm, strong hands. It was then that Taekwoon began to feel it, what Sanghyuk had been talking about earlier this morning. The transfer of energy that would come with two magical beings becoming one; though, Taekwoon supposed, their escapades tonight wouldn’t go so far. But even then, the beginning effects were exhilarating, he couldn’t even begin to image what the full thing would feel like. It started as a light tingling all throughout his body. But as the kiss became deeper, as the hands pulled at all the right places, as the temperature in the room began to rise, the feeling began to change. The tingling became a small burn, then a full-blown fire raging throughout his entire body. It made them both thirst for more. Taekwoon felt electrified, he wanted more, moaning quietly into Sanghyuk’s mouth. And if the way Sanghyuk was responding was any indication, he was feeling just as good, wanting just as much.

Moving quickly, Taekwoon messed with the hem of Sanghyuk’s shirt until he understood what his master wanted of him. He sat up just enough for Taekwoon to pull his shirt off and Taekwoon broke their kiss to admire his new view. His servant hadn’t had a shirt on this morning either but, at the time, Taekwoon was too embarrassed and groggy to really take in the sight.

“Like what you see?” Sanghyuk asked, a dark smirk on his face. His voice was an octave lower than it should’ve been, Taekwoon wondered briefly if it could go lower. He really wanted to find out.

“Definitely,” he finally breathed out, taking in the sight of toned muscles and chiseled skin. He swooped back in to kiss Sanghyuk once more, who met him with no resistance. This time Sanghyuk ran a hand through Taekwoon’s hair, pulling just enough to hear more noises pour from his master’s mouth. His other hand found its way further up Taekwoon’s shirt, rubbing soothing circles with the pads of his fingers as it went.

Taekwoon hands traveled the other direction. He wondered how far he could push this until Sanghyuk stopped him, if Sanghyuk would stop him at all. He had to be feeling just as good, just as energized, just as needy as Taekwoon felt… maybe it’d be worth a shot.

But as soon as Taekwoon’s hand touched Sanghyuk’s belt, he was being pushed off to the side and onto his back, hands pinned above his head as Sanghyuk swung over to straddle Taekwoon, looming over him with his larger frame. Taekwoon’s lust clouded mind cleared enough to be slightly annoyed by the rather rough treatment but when he saw the hungry look on Sanghyuk’s face he found he didn’t much mind being treated a little rough.

“I believe…” Sanghyuk started, kissing Taekwoon slowly with a wet, open-mouthed kiss. “That I told you, you get one kiss.”

Taekwoon laughed against Sanghyuk’s lips as he was kissed again. “I didn’t know,” another kiss. “That making out for a couple minutes and,” one more. “Four other kisses constituted as ‘only one kiss’.”

“Are you actually complaining?” Sanghyuk laughed, pulling back away a bit to look down at the man underneath him.

“No,” Taekwoon smiled back up at Sanghyuk. “I just want to know why you keep kissing me.”

Sanghyuk pecked his lips again before answering. “You said it earlier, it’s mutually beneficial to the both of us to be intimate with each other.” One more kiss. “And it helps that you are fucking exhilarating.”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Taekwoon said, smiling up at Sanghyuk.

“Damn,” Sanghyuk laughed out, “you are something else.”

Taekwoon laughed, looking up at Sanghyuk as his servant looked down at him. Now that their moment of passion seemed to be dying down, Taekwoon was pleasantly surprised to find himself feeling much better. More energized and infinitely happier than he had been earlier. Even when he remembered that he still had to talk to his alliance, he didn’t feel an overwhelming sense of dread anymore… as long as he had Sanghyuk close he’d be okay in the end.

“What are you so smiley about?” Sanghyuk asked, a smile of his own on his face.

“Nothing, that just felt… really good, in case that wasn’t obvious” Taekwoon said, taking a page out of Sanghyuk’s book and practically purring the words out.

“Hmm,” Sanghyuk hummed in agreement, smile slipping into a smirk. “Didn’t I tell you that? Should’ve taken my offer this morning…”

“Maybe… but waiting made it all more… exhilarating,” Taekwoon teased again.

Sanghyuk laughed, deep and happy.

“Such a tease,” Sanghyuk shot right back.

“Now, as much as I love having you on top of me, being pinned down and getting teased with the temptation to continue…” Taekwoon smirked as something dark flashed in Sanghyuk’s eyes. The desired effect. “But I still have work to do…”

“You know,” Sanghyuk started, getting teasingly close to Taekwoon once more. “You’re really making me rethink this deal…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Hmm,” Sanghyuk kissed the tip of Taekwoon’s nose like he had earlier in the day. “You’re tempting me on purpose. Do you think I’ll cave that easily?”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Convincing,” Sanghyuk laughed. “You’re a devious little thing, aren’t you?”

“Me? Never,” Sanghyuk broke into a warm laughter at Taekwoon’s words.

“Have I ever told you how much I like you?”

“You may have mentioned it a few times…”

“Well then, Master,” Sanghyuk purred. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Taekwoon sat up when Sanghyuk finally released his hands from his vice-like grip and stood up from the bed.

“That kind of hurt…” Taekwoon said, rubbing at his wrists that had turned a light red color in irritation.

“I’m sorry,” Sanghyuk said suddenly turning all serious and concerned. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Taekwoon took in the situation and tried to hold back the smirk threatening to give away his plan. Sanghyuk always took every chance to tease him, so Taekwoon thought it was time for a bit of payback.

“Don’t worry so much,” Taekwoon said, whispering his words into Sanghyuk’s ear. “I like it a little rough, if it’s with you.”

His servant was on him in an instant once more and Taekwoon suddenly found himself pressed against the wall, trapped by Sanghyuk’s strong arms and large frame.

“Now listen here you little tease,” Sanghyuk started, laughing despite being very clearly frustrated. “I told you one kiss, and that’s all you’re going to get.”

“Darn.”

“Oh, I know you must be so broken up about it,” Sanghyuk teased again, leaning in very close to Taekwoon, his lips brushing against his as he continued to speak. “There are children in the house, go get your work done.”

And with that, he disappeared into nothing, melting into the shadows that the small bedside lamp casted around the room. Taekwoon felt cheated, he’d been expecting at least one more kiss. He scoffed aloud. Even when Taekwoon thought he was in control of the situation, Sanghyuk was one step ahead of him.

“Can you at least get all the ‘children’ in the parlor?” Taekwoon called to the empty room. He got nothing in response, though he really didn’t know what he was expecting. “Yeah, fuck you too.”

He figured Sanghyuk would do as he asked anyway, but a response would have been nice. And Taekwoon was the tease. The man would be the death of him.

Shaking his head, Taekwoon made his way back downstairs to the parlor where he had asked Sanghyuk to gather everyone together. Thankfully, his servant had listened to him and by the time he arrived at the parlor, Hoseok and Wonsik, along with their servants, were both in the room.

Almost the second Taekwoon entered through the large entry arch, Jaehwan was on his feet and rushing towards Taekwoon. 

“I’m so sorry, Taekwoon-ssi, after everything you’ve done for me and Wonsikkie and that’s how I repay you. I didn’t want to, he forced my hand. I didn’t have a choice,” Jaehwan rapid fire explained as he reached Taekwoon, latching on to the taller male, grabbing either side of him.

“What are you talking about, Jaehwan?” Wonsik asked, looking reasonably confused. He stayed at the mansion while everyone else went out since he wasn’t much of a battle mage.

“You haven’t told him yet?” Hyungwon asked from where he stood leaning against the wall near a tall standing window.

“Told me what?” Wonsik asked again, standing up from the couch and looking very concerned. Jaehwan wouldn’t look up from the ground.

No one said anything for a moment, and Wonsik’s confusion seemed to grow.

“Guys, what happened out there…? Didn’t you beat Archer? Why are you all upset, will someone please explain what the hell happened before I start yelling?!” Wonsik asked, already yelling rather loudly.

“We did kill Archer,” Taekwoon started, taking on the responsibility of explaining that Wonsik’s servant was actually the one who killed Archer. “But…”

“I killed him,” Jaehwan spoke up for Taekwoon, walking back to his master. Wonsik looked equal parts confused, shocked, frustrated and upset.

“What? But I thought…?” Wonsik started.

“That was the original plan, but Hakyeon and Hongbin… they came up with another plan… to make sure we actually killed Archer and didn’t lose Taekwoon or Sanghyuk or both in the process,” Jaehwan answered before Wonsik could finish his question.

“So Hongbin snuck up behind Chanyeol to distract Archer from the battle with Sanghyuk… and Jaehwan killed Archer when he was distracted…” Taekwoon tentatively finished for Jaehwan.

“What… How could you do something like that?” Wonsik asked Jaehwan. “I thought we all agreed not to do something like this…”

“I know, I’m sorry Master,” Jaehwan whined. “But I didn’t have a choice…”

“What do you mean by that,” Hoseok asked from his spot on the couch. He’d been rather quiet, rubbing at his forehead seemingly lost in thought.

“That servant, Hakyeon, he threatened to hurt Wonsikkie if I didn’t go along with their plan…” Jaehwan said impossibly quiet. “I’m sorry,” Jaehwan continued to apologize.

“Jaehwan,” Wonsik said, pulling his clearly distressed servant close to him for a hug. “It’s okay, stop apologizing… it’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?” Jaehwan asked, his voice sounding muffled with his face pressed against Wonsik’s chest.

“We’re going to figure it out…” Wonsik said, looking to Taekwoon for some sort of help.

But before Taekwoon could think of something to say, the last member of their alliance walked into the room. Hongbin sheepishly walked in through the opposite archway that Taekwoon had come in, Hakyeon followed behind him, a comforting hand placed on his shoulder.

“Soo,” Hongbin started, looking between the five pairs of eyes staring at him as he entered the room. “Before you all freak out at me… I want to apologize for going behind all of your backs…”  

No one said anything for a moment, all of them looking around at each other for someone to say something before every eye landed on Taekwoon. He cleared his throat, searching for any of the courage he had earlier but again before he could say anything, Wonsik shouted out in anger:

“How could you threaten to hurt me!? How could you let him do that, Hongbin!? We’ve been friends forever…”

“What are you talking about?” Hongbin asked, looking up from the ground where his eyes had been trained. He looked from a furious Wonsik to Hakyeon standing behind him. “What is he talking about?” Hongbin asked to his servant.

“He threatened to hurt Wonsikkie if I didn’t follow your plan!” Jaehwan yelled, pulling away from Wonsik enough for his voice to be heard before burrowing right back against Wonsik’s chest.

“What?” Hongbin yelled, sounding equally as angry as Wonsik. “I thought you said Jaehwan agreed to the plan willingly!”

“He did,” Hakyeon said. “After a bit of convincing.”

“I can’t believe you would threaten my best friend’s life!” Hongbin shouted.

“I wouldn’t actually hurt him!”

Shouting erupted from almost everyone in the room. Clearly, there were some very big trust issues within this group dynamic. Taekwoon decided he needed to do something before a fist fight broke out between everyone.

“Hey!” He shouted over everyone. The room immediately went quiet, everyone looked over at Taekwoon with equally shocked expressions. None of them expected this usually very quiet man to actually be capable of shouting and demanding attention. “Can everyone please just sit down so we can talk through this? Yelling at each other isn’t going to solve anything.”

Begrudgingly, everyone in the room took a seat at one of the three couches in the middle of the room. It was a tense silence, but at least the yelling had stopped.

“Thank you,” Taekwoon said. Everyone was avoiding looking at anyone else. Hongbin’s eyes were trained on the floor in front of him, Hakyeon was looking at the nearest wall. Hyungwon, who hadn’t come to sit on the couch, was looking out the window. Taekwoon wasn’t really expecting Hyungwon to listen to him, so he didn’t say anything to the Assassin servant. Hoseok was still rubbing at his forehead, trying to rub out a headache. Jaehwan had his forehead resting against Wonsik’s shoulder, his eyes closed. And Wonsik found his shoelaces to be very amusing as he fiddled with one of them.

“Regardless of what did or didn’t happen, that battle shouldn’t have ended the way it did, nor should any of that plotting behind each other’s backs have occurred either. We’re supposed to be a team, right?” Taekwoon started. No one would look at him. “We have to trust each other, trust each other’s abilities and not come up with secret plots behind everyone’s back. Otherwise this won’t work.”

Everyone around the room nodded in understanding. It didn’t happen all at once but slowly everyone was in agreement.

“Now we just have to move past all this since we can’t do anything about it now. But I swear to all the gods in this room that if something like that happens again, I will not hold anything back,” Taekwoon finished.

“Agreed,” Wonsik said, very clearly glaring at the Caster servant across from him.

“I would expect nothing less,” Hakyeon said, avoiding the angry looks Wonsik was sending him.

“Now that we’re all in agreement on that,” Taekwoon sighed. It wasn’t an ideal agreement, but it was definitely better than no agreement at all. “We need to decide on how to take down Saber, since he needs to be our next target so you all can sleep in your own homes without feeling threatened.”

“That makes sense and all but how do you suppose we do that?” Wonsik asked. “If I remember correctly, Sanghyuk had a rather difficult time fighting against him and Hyungwon had to come to his rescue.”

“Okay, first off,” Jaehwan started, “you need to calm down because you’re being really rude.”

“Fine,” Wonsik scoffed. “At least Taekwoon-hyung being in charge is better than Caster.”

“Secondly,” Jaehwan continued. “He has a point, even if it was rudely stated.”

“Exactly, which is why I think we need all the help we can get,” Taekwoon said.

“What are you suggesting?” Hyungwon asked, looking away from the window finally.

“I think we need to extend a truce to Rider.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the drill, 
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments are appreciated!


	9. Namjoon

Namjoon had never been much for magic; in fact, he wasn’t even a mage at all. He had been born with hardly any magical circuits; certainly not enough to ever hope to learn the most basic of spells.

His parents, unlike most magical families, were never disappointed in him, however. Some people, even those from a long lineage of mages, just weren’t born for magic. Or so his parents would always tell him with a shrug like it wasn’t even a big deal. They still taught him about the world of magic so he never felt left out, and a bit of alchemy since that didn’t require any magical talent, and a lot of basic self-defense fighting. He was entirely too uncoordinated and accident prone for much else, but he tried his best because it made his parents feel better. There were two Kim families of mages in this area and, because of their proximity to each other, the two families had been bitter rivals for centuries. So even if Namjoon wasn’t a mage, he could still be a viable, and a very easy, target for the other family if he wasn’t prepared. According to reports from the Mage’s Association, the other Kim family was raising a highly talented mage around Namjoon’s age as well. So, they could never be too careful.

His baby sister, on the other hand, more than made up for Namjoon’s lack of magical talent. She excelled in literally everything Namjoon couldn’t; the perfect budding mage to one day become the head of the family. Namjoon never resented her for it, however. How could he? She was his adorable, little sister and he loved her as such; he’d do anything to keep her happy. If that involved staying up later than he should to help her study, or stumbling through tons of potions to help her feel better after hours of strenuous magical exercises, then he’d gladly do it. So naturally, when his family was informed that the Holy Grail had chosen their home town for its resurrection after its usual sixty-year rejuvenation period, he quickly decided he wasn’t going to let his sister participate in such a dangerous event.

She was only sixteen; she couldn’t actually be expected to participate in a battle to the death. But his parents seemed to think that this was totally fine, beginning to up her studies in difficulty and prepare for the summoning of a servant for her to have a fighting chance in the war to come. Namjoon was utterly baffled by this. How could his parents- his always loving and understanding parents- actually be okay with letting their only daughter and youngest child risk her life just for a fancy cup? Maybe he just didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, their want of the Grail because of his lack of magical talent. Maybe if he had been born a mage he’d be able to understand their motivations. But as it stood, it infuriated him to no end that his family was going through with this.

His utter contempt only got worse one exceptionally late night about a week before the war would actually be commenced. She came to Namjoon’s room, crying hysterically and begging for help.

“Oppa!” She cried, “I can’t do this anymore…”

She collapsed into his arms, latching on to him in a tight hug, burying her face in his chest and crying freely. Namjoon had never seen her like this. Sure, she’d been frustrated at certain spells: or maybe even a little depressed at times because she couldn’t handle certain types of magic yet.

But never, not once, had Namjoon ever seen her completely break, actually accepting defeat and despising her talents.

“Kyungmin-ah?” He asked, returning the desperate hug and stroking her long hair, hoping that it was a little comforting. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong?”

“The war,” she sniffed. “I can’t do it… I’m scared, I don’t want to die!”

“Hey,” he hushed, trying to get her to calm down. Seeing her this upset made him upset. “You’re not going to die.”

“How do you know?” She snapped back. Her anger showing through now. “We don’t know what the other families are planning to do and even beside that, they’re all way more talented than I am. Sure, the Park family’s head ran away on them and they’re left with basically nothing. But the other Kim family has a powerful mage. The Lee family was wiped out but there’s rumors that their youngest son is still alive somewhere and he’s probably looking for revenge. The Shin family’s head has been studying with the best school for magic there is for the past two years. The Jung family hasn’t done much in the past few decades but they’ve always been unpredictable so we can’t rule them out. And who even knows what the Choi family has up their sleeve. I don’t stand a chance!”

It was clear to Namjoon now that some of sister’s extra studies had involved full lessons about the other mage families that had made their home here as well. Of course it would make everything seem hopeless with all that information. He completely understood his sister’s sudden drop in self-confidence. She was strong, a very promising student, but entirely too young to fight in a battle to the death against older, and much more experienced mages.

Namjoon made his decision then.

“I’ll represent the family in the war, then,” he said finitely. His sister looked up at him in pure confusion. He understood that completely. The statement was completely absurd but he couldn’t just sit idly by and watch his sister get torn apart by the other family’s representatives.

“B-but you’re not a mage,” Kyungmin sniffed. Her crying had stopped now, almost entirely replaced with confusion and shock. “How are you even going to summon a servant?”

“You remember your studies, don’t you?” Namjoon asked. Kyungmin nodded slowly, clearly unsure as to where Namjoon was going with this. “The Grail is supposed to take care of the actual summoning of a servant, we just need to supply it with the right amount of mana when it does show up.”

“Well then how are you going to supply the servant with mana?”

“That’s where you’ll come in,” Namjoon said. Realization seemed to hit his sister.

“If you summon the servant, it’ll be contracted to you regardless of who is actually suppling its mana,” his sister slowly elaborated, as if trying to remember the words from her plethora of text books on magic. “You’re brilliant, Oppa!”

She grabbed him once more in a bone-crushing hug, but thankfully this time she was ecstatic instead of crying hysterically.

“Are you sure you want to do this, though? I don’t want you to get hurt either…”

“It’ll be okay,” Namjoon affirmed. “We just can’t tell mom and dad until we’ve already summoned the servant.”

His sister nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, they’d never let us go through with this… they’d really like it if I won for the family…”

Of course they would; but, with Namjoon representing his family, he was fully prepared to not win this thing. There was just no way he’d be able to, in all honesty. He really hoped the servant he ended up summoning understood their situation, because even the heroic spirits summoned into this war had a wish they wanted granted.

His answer to that worry came rather quickly; three days later when he and his sister secretly summoned a servant for the war to come.

His sister had gathered the necessary ingredients: six candles and a catalyst. Thankfully, his parents already had a higher-level summoning circle drawn in their workshop so they didn’t need to shadily acquire fresh chicken blood. How they would’ve found that would have been an interesting adventure that they fortunately didn’t need to partake in. His sister had, however, obtained their catalyst through rather shady means. She wouldn’t actually say how she got the super rusted rod of what appeared to be early bronze, but Namjoon had the sneaking suspicion she had stolen it from one of the city’s various museums. He figured they wouldn’t really miss whatever this had been, however; it was rather decrepit and he couldn’t even make out what it had been in the first place. But his sister assured him, this strange piece of ancient metal would summon a servant and that’s all he really needed to know.

Summoning the servant hadn’t been hard; the incantation wasn’t anything too especially challenging since Namjoon did speak English rather well. In a flash of blinding white light, the heroic spirit was summoned in all its glory. He was tall and broad but didn’t look to be packing much muscle. He was dressed in a very formal Ancient Grecian style toga and wore a helmet with feather wings on either side of it on his head; his high-laced sandals matched his helmet, with feathered wings on either foot as well. There was a singular bronze dagger attached to his belt but he also held what Namjoon recognized to be a caduceus, with what appeared to be live snakes actually circling the winged staff. He smiled brightly at his summoners before immediately collapsing to the ground, eyes rolling into the back of his head, completely passed out.

Namjoon stared at the servant that now laid on the ground lifelessly. What in the world had just happened? The heroic spirit had seemed fine up until the light died from the summoning circle beneath him. His sister, on the other hand, wasn’t fazed by the servant’s sudden lack of vitality. She rushed forward, kneeling next to the passed-out man and began to murmur a spell under her breath. Both her and the servant began to glow a dull blue as Namjoon assumed the spell was beginning to take effect. When she finished, the man on the ground stirred slightly but remained unconscious.

“What happened to him?” He asked his sister. She stood up from the ground tentatively as if unsure of if whatever spell she had just casted actually worked.

“Since you summoned the servant and you have basically no mana to provide for its existence, the spirit didn’t have anything to sustain itself in this world. I had to, to put it in basic terms, cast a spell to switch the mana usage for the servant from you to me.”

“Oh right… I just kind of assumed that would happen naturally…” Namjoon admitted. His sister only giggled.

“If only magic were that easy,” she said in between giggles. “Now you should probably get your servant upstairs and into a bed or something so he isn’t super confused when he wakes up.”

“Don’t you have a spell or something that could like teleport him upstairs?”

“I do, but I’m currently sustaining the most powerful familiar a mage could possibly summon and I don’t think I should cast petty spells if you want to keep him around…” She said, beginning to leave the room and leave Namjoon to it all.

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Namjoon grumbled, reaching down to pick up his newly summoned servant. As he did so, he suddenly felt a searing burn go up his entire right arm. He cried out in pain as his sister ran back over to him.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” She asked, clearly startled by Namjoon’s sudden outburst. He gestured to his hand where he felt blood that was not actually there trickling down his fingers. He hadn’t felt anything like this before and he was freaking out just a little bit as he tried to keep his cries of pain to a minimum. His sister grabbed his hand, watching in awe as red light suddenly shined from the forming seals that were burning themselves into Namjoon’s hand. When they were fully formed, the sensation stopped completely, replaced with a weird sort of cold sensation; as if peppermint extract had been rubbed on his skin around the newly formed seals. They were appropriately shaped like the caduceus that his servant had lying next to him in three complete seals.

“So, it’s official now,” his sister said, a worried edge to her voice. “You’ve successfully forced the Grail to recognize you as a master in this war… you just got your command seals.”

“Why did they have to hurt so bad?” Namjoon complained, rubbing at the back of his hand.

His sister only giggled and didn’t offer the answer, instead asking:

“Are you sure, you’re okay doing this?”  

Namjoon thought about it for a minute, looking at his sister’s worried and slightly scared face.

“Of course,” he decided. “It’s a little too late to turn back now.”

He had carried his servant upstairs as carefully as he could, trying his hardest not to wake his parents up. He and his sister would tell them about what they had concocted without their consent tomorrow at a reasonable time of the day. They wouldn’t be happy, obviously, but it was a little late to change things now no matter their contempt. And unsurprisingly, they weren’t happy in the least bit about basically their forfeit in this war, but in the end, settled on the fact that it was probably for the best anyway. Their daughter’s life wasn’t a fair trade for an all-powerful wish granting device in their mind. Their family would just have to try again another time.

His servant had come around soon after the conversation with his parents. When what had happened was relayed to the man, he had burst out into laughter.

“That’s probably the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time, and I pride myself in jokes!” He somehow got out between his loud laughter. Namjoon was unsure of how to react in this situation. Weren’t heroic spirits supposed to be… well heroic? Not complete and utter dorks…

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet my master. I’m a servant of the Rider class, better known as Hermes, god of mischief and mail, and patron to thieves, you know the one. But I’ve decided, since a guy like me would stand out here if you just threw my real name around, that you should totally call me Seokjin.”

“All right… Seokjin, nice to meet you, too.” Namjoon had said tentatively.

“Oh hey, I just thought of something. What do you call bread when it’s on the beach?” His servant suddenly sat up fast, looking completely serious for reasons Namjoon was completely baffled by.

“What are you talking about?”

“A sandwich!” He burst out into another fit of laughter, practically keening over at his own joke while Namjoon was left utterly confused. Of course he would summon a defective servant… It was just his luck after all.

“Soo…” Namjoon started carefully, unsure of how his strange familiar would react to being told that they basically had no chance in this war. His playful attitude was really throwing him off. “I have to tell you of a couple things before we get started…”

“Oh, is it about the snakes? ‘Cause they don’t bite, they’re really all bark and no bite… most of the time…” Seokjin said. Had that really been a serious problem in the past?

“No, that’s not it,” Namjoon clarified. “I wanted to tell you that I’m not a mage.”

“Oh, I already knew that,” Seokjin waved it off as if that were the most insignificant thing he had ever heard. “That’s the whole reason I passed out!”

He started laughing again. Namjoon couldn’t understand what was happening right now… Did his servant really not care he was stuck in a contract where there was no way they could possibly win.

“You knew?” Namjoon asked.

“Of course I did. I can tell where the mana sustaining me is coming from and it’s definitely not you,” Seokjin continued.

“And you’re okay with that?” Namjoon asked. “And that we’re probably not going to win this thing because of that fact?”

“I don’t see how I could be upset with you,” Seokjin began. Namjoon couldn’t detect a hint of anger or disappointment in Seokjin’s voice. “You’re doing this for your sister, right? I think I’d do the same thing in your place. I’ve watched so many of my own half-siblings get screwed over so many times, if there was ever anything I could’ve done to help them I would’ve jumped at the opportunity.”

His servant’s voice was sincere for the first time since he’d been summoned. He took on a confident look as well, as if what he was saying held so much weight for him.

“So, I’m going to help you keep your sister safe right along with you,” Seokjin said finally. Namjoon had a feeling that nothing anyone could say could would change Seokjin’s mind on the matter now that he had decided this of himself. “Even if that means we both lose in the end.”

After that was settled, the two of them discussed what they should do for the rest of the war. Neither of them exactly wanted to just put themselves out there and be the first casualty of the war.

“I kind of want to hang around here for a bit,” Seokjin told him. “It’s been a while since I’ve been on this plane of existence, and honestly it’s phenomenal being back here.”

“Then I guess, we can just hang around here?” Namjoon suggested, gesturing to his family’s decently sized manor. It certainly wasn’t on the same level as the Jung family’s but then again, no mage family is this area was on the same level as them.

“Fantastic!” Seokjin exclaimed, jumping up from his bed and running from the room.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Namjoon shouted after him.

“Nope, but you’ll catch up eventually!”

So, Namjoon and his estranged servant hid out in his house through most of the beginning of the war. They would get reports occasionally of the various goings on of the other battles between the other houses from Namjoon’s parents’ familiars.

The first battle of the entire war was apparently a small altercation between the Saber servant and Caster. Namjoon read over the report when they first got it, his parents telling him of how he could never be too careful anymore. The Saber servant had attacked as Caster’s master was walking home from school one day. It wasn’t much of a battle, Caster didn’t fare too well against the Saber servant obviously and the only reason he survived the whole ordeal was because another servant appeared to distract Saber. The other servant wasn’t spotted so it could be assumed that Caster and Assassin are probably working together.

That whole battle sat wrong with Namjoon. Were mages really that horrible to other people? Attacking a high school age kid as he walked home simply because he was also in this war seemed wrong on so many levels. Hell, Namjoon himself was a high school age kid! It could’ve easily been him attacked by that servant. He’d never been so happy he wasn’t a mage. No one could sense where he was, no one could track him down, and as long as his servant didn’t follow him very closely no one was any wiser that he was actually a master in this grail war. He was basically invisible to all the other masters and servants out there… unfortunately they were also invisible to him. But he wasn’t exactly seeking them all out, so he didn’t even mind that. If he could walk home from school and not get attacked then he’d gladly be completely ignorant to the powerful mages that he probably saw on a daily basis.

The next battle in the war came by in less of a shock; it was the participants that were a little troubling to Namjoon and his family. Caster had attacked the last master to be chosen for the war, before he even summoned a servant apparently since one couldn’t be found. But instead of that last master being some poor fool who got stuck with the job, he turned out to be the Jung family’s new head of the family. And what a powerful mage they had conjured out of thin air.

He, according to the reports, easily took on the Caster servant; to the point where Caster actually retreated along with his master from the battle. The man didn’t even have a servant himself and yet, there he was, taking down the highest level familiar a mage could summon, as his sister said.

So it was no small wonder why the very next day, the Jung mage was attacked by the Archer servant. Namjoon read the report on that mess of a battle three time, even had Seokjin read it to him, so he made sure he understood what exactly had happened. It was a mess of a day, full of way too many coincidences for all these mages to not have been working with each other at all.

First the Jung mage gets attacked, seemingly still without a servant, by the Archer servant. Then Berserker comes along and protects the man, distracting Archer long enough for the Jung mage and Caster’s master, who still can’t be identified for some unknown reason, to escape into the library. The Berserker servant and the Archer one kept fighting while the other two came out of the other side of the library where Saber was waiting for them. A man steps forward then, apparently the Jung mage’s summoned servant of the Lancer class, to take on Saber. The battle starts to go south when once again, Assassin comes to the rescue so that Caster’s master, the Jung mage, and Lancer can escape. But the Assassin servant is seriously injured by a well-placed blow from Saber.

If Namjoon knew anything about how mages worked, those four servants and masters shouldn’t have been working together as well as they were. There was no benefit for them, unless they were all allied with each other. That could be extremely problematic. If that were the case, then each other servant would just get picked off one right after the other until it was just the four of them left without so much as a hiccup. Saber first probably, then Archer, then they’d come for Seokjin.

Namjoon knew, he knew going in to this, that he wasn’t going to win. But after spending two weeks with his servant, he found he rather enjoyed the man’s company. Sure, he was a huge dork that laughed at his own terrible jokes but he also didn’t talk to Namjoon like he was some fragile flower that would blow away at the first sign of trouble. He never really resented his parents for being over-protective of him; he understood why they were, really, he did. If a mage came up to him looking to kill him, they’d probably be able to, no problem. But he sometimes wished his parents just never told him about mage craft, kept him out of the loop. But instead, that’s all they talked about, especially with how promising his sister was becoming.

Seokjin never sugar-coated things, told Namjoon exactly how it was out there with the other servants and masters. He also never treated him like any weaker of a person simply because he couldn’t use magic. And Namjoon absolutely adored that about him. Suddenly he could talk about magic and other mage things without the terms being dumbed down or the situation made lighter than it actually was just because he couldn’t _possibly_ understand the gravity of the situation. If he had to put up with a plethora of really awful jokes, then he’d gladly do it just to keep Seokjin talking to him.

“I think we should do something about the alliance that’s been formed between Lancer, Berserker, Caster, and Assassin,” Namjoon brought up to Seokjin one late night when everyone else in the household had gone to bed. He figured if he brought up this concern to anyone else in his family, he’d be told not to worry himself over such matters. _Let the actual mages handle the problem._

“I was wondering that too, honestly,” Seokjin said, throwing his cards down on the table triumphantly. “I win.”

“I swear to God, you’re cheating,” Namjoon said exasperated. They weren’t playing for money or anything but after Seokjin’s fourth flush, Namjoon was started to get suspicious. He was playing poker with the Greek god of luck after all.

“If am I, it’s unintentional,” Seokjin shrugged, grabbing the cards and beginning to shuffle them once more. “Anyway, about that…”

“We could pit the three strongest against each other,” Namjoon suggested.

“Do you think they’d fall for that?”

“They might if the god of tricks is the one doing the convincing.”

“You might be on to something there.” Seokjin thought about it for a moment, before breaking into a bright smile. “Hey, hey, hey, what’s the difference between a poorly dressed man on a tricycle and a well-dressed man on a bicycle?”

Namjoon sighed deeply, looking at his new hand before saying sarcastically:

“I dunno, what is the difference?”

“Attire.”

As usual, Seokjin immediately broke out into boisterous laughter at his only silly little joke. And Namjoon, despite himself, let out a little chuckle at that one, which almost immediately shut Seokjin up.

“What?” Namjoon asked, a little uncomfortable with the way his servant was now staring at him.

“You actually laughed…” Seokjin whispered. “At my silly little joke. No one laughs at my jokes…”

“At least you’re self-aware,” Namjoon mumbled. Seokjin practically jumped across the table at him, latching on to him in a tight hug. “What are you doing?”

“No one’s laughed at my jokes before and I’m centuries old,” Seokjin continued. “So, I just thought I should like do something to thank you or something.”

“Oh, okay,” Namjoon laughed again. “You’re kind of a strange guy.”

“I’ve gotten that a lot,” Seokjin agreed, laughing with Namjoon, lingering a bit longer in the hug. Namjoon found he didn’t really mind it all so much. Seokjin was a comforting presence to have around this magically gifted house; Namjoon didn’t feel so left out anymore with another non-mage around. He had someone he could actually talk to without feeling like they were just waiting to talk to someone who could ‘actually understand’ what they were talking about. He never realized how bad it got sometimes, but now that he had he couldn’t just put it out of his mind again. He’d really miss Seokjin if he were taken away from his at this point; how would he survive within his family without him now?

So, they decided to try their plan out. Seokjin would goad the other servants, reading the ‘room’ and attempting to start a fight right then and there. It might’ve worked too, if that Berserker servant hadn’t shown up.

Namjoon was hiding nearby; no one so much as looked at him. Did he really have that faint of a magical output? He came from a long lineage of mages and yet nothing… It made him a little sad for the first time…

Regardless of all that, all the other masters seemed to be seriously considering Seokjin’s words. And when they decided that teaming up with Rider wouldn’t be the best idea, Seokjin easily switched motives, pinning everyone else against the strongest mage in the small clearing.

Archer looked to be a formidable foe, too bad his master wouldn’t be able to sustain him for a long drawn out battle. Namjoon could tell how nervous he was about this whole situation from here. He felt for the guy. A powerful sister who was infinitely more talented than him, yet here he was stuck in this whole mess. It wasn’t exactly the same situation because Namjoon actually chose to be here in lieu of his sister… but still all the same, he understood the guy’s nerves.

Saber, though a head shorter than his own master, was absolutely intimidating. Especially standing next to the Choi’s head; a very powerful elementalist, his sister explained to him. A powerful mage with the most powerful servant would be completely terrifying. Namjoon tried not to think about going up against that duo… Regardless of how tonight went, he and Seokjin hopefully wouldn’t have to.

Lancer on the other hand, Namjoon didn’t know what to think. Seokjin told him that he literally could not detect anything from that servant, not a magical aura, not a presence, not a mana source, nothing. It worried Seokjin a little bit since he only knew of one mythological figure that could completely disguise himself without leaving a trace; and if they were actually dealing with Hades then everyone would seriously have a problem. Namjoon also didn’t like the looks of the Jung mage either. He didn’t know much about magic or how it worked, but he did know how to tell when someone was ungodly strong. He really hoped they never had to face that duo either… even more so than the Saber/Choi pair.

Unfortunately for them, no one ended up actually fighting each other. The Berserker servant showed up, battle crazy and looking for a fight. The crazed man came at Seokjin first understandable, but Seokjin had a multitude of ways to run away from a servant like that; he was the Rider servant for a reason.

When he realized he couldn’t get at Seokjin, Berserker went after Archer, who had ‘unfinished business’ with from the day before. Before he reached the servant though, Berserker’s master came running from somewhere Namjoon didn’t see. He screamed something at his servant, holding out his right hand with the command seals on it. In a flash of red light that originated from the mage’s hand, Berserker collapsed to the ground at Archer’s feet, completely unconscious, then he and his Master disappeared completely. The other servants and their masters vanished almost the minute Berserker showed up. Archer was last to go, disappearing in a ton of golden sparkles, leaving Namjoon and Seokjin alone in the small park between buildings.

“That went well, I’d say,” Seokjin joked, as he flew back down to join Namjoon on the ground.

“I don’t think we accomplished anything…”

“It was kind of fun, though.” Seokjin laughed whole-heartedly. “I haven’t gotten to play a trick on anyone in a while… well besides you.”

“You know, I knew you were cheating.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Come on then, let’s just go home.”

They continued on with their life of hiding after that; they couldn’t do much else if they wanted to stay with each other longer. And they both really wanted to stay together for as long as possible.

After another day, they got news of yet another battle having been fought. Lancer had challenged Archer and it was a close match up until Caster’s master had attacked Archer’s master and Berserker killed Archer. Namjoon suspected foul play was at work during that battle. And if the reports were correct, Lancer’s master had helped Archer’s master after the battle. Maybe that four-way alliance was having issues of its own… And if that was actually the case, what did that mean for the rest of the war?

So, it really came as a huge surprise to both Namjoon and Seokjin when those four masters showed up at their doorstep, asking for their help, the very next day. Namjoon didn’t know what to expect, but he figured this couldn’t be a sneak attack. As long as he didn’t leave the house, everything would be fine. His sister had told him once of their parents had charms placed over the manor so that visiting mages couldn’t cast any sort of spell without permission.

“We should hear them out,” Seokjin’s voice rang in his head.

“Do you think they’ll cause a problem?”

“Lancer’s master seems like a reasonable guy and he looks to be the one in charge. Let’s give them a shot; we can always them out if it doesn’t work.”

So Namjoon opened the door for them, silencing whatever hushed conversation they were having before.

“Hi,” the Jung mage said quietly. Namjoon hadn’t expected such an intimidating guy to be so socially awkward. “You’re Rider’s master, right? We’re not looking for trouble…”

“We just want to talk,” one of the teens of the alliance said from behind their apparent leader. Namjoon recognized him from school. Shin Hoseok, he was pretty sure.

Namjoon didn’t say anything, only moved out of the way to let the four mages into his home. He was thankful that his parents were both at work now and his sister was still hanging out with her friends. If they were here while these actual mages were, Namjoon wouldn’t be able to get in a word otherwise. This was his battle, he wanted to be the one to make the decisions.

“Uhm, my name’s Taekwoon,” the Jung mage said as they came into the sitting room. He then pointed to each of the other teenagers following behind him. “And this is Hoseok, Hongbin, and Wonsik.”

“I know those three,” Namjoon nodded. “We go to school together.”

“Oh,” Taekwoon looked back at his alliance members, who only shrugged slightly. Clearly, they didn’t recognize him.

“My name’s Namjoon,” he filled in. He was unsurprised by the fact that none of them knew his name. Namjoon knew now why those three always hung around each other, ignoring everyone else at school. They were all talented mages so of course they wouldn’t extend an invitation to a non-mage; even if he was from a mage family just as they all were.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Taekwoon nodded, extending a hand. Namjoon took it and shook his hand. He was a little weirded out by how friendly this mage was being. Seokjin had tried to turn all the other servants against him just the other day so Namjoon had expected civility. Especially after the less than friendly ways he’d seen all the other mages interact with each other.

“So,” Namjoon started, sitting down and gesturing for his guests to do the same. “What are you all here for?”

“We need your help,” Taekwoon said without a second of hesitation, without a hint of ill-intent. “As you’ve probably seen… Saber and his master… are a bit of a problem.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Namjoon laughed. Taekwoon smiled at him as well. The other three nodded in agreement. “So, I take it you want me to help you defeat him.”

“That’s right,” Taekwoon nodded. “We need all the help we can get, and it would be beneficial to you too if Saber were knocked out of the competition.”

Namjoon wanted to say yet, but what was stopping them from immediately turning against him when Saber was defeated?

“How do I know you won’t turn against me after the battle?”

Taekwoon looked at his other alliance members, who nodded at him in a silent agreement. This must have been an argument they expected him to bring up.

“After Saber’s defeated, this entire alliance will break apart. Every man for himself, we promise.”

“You’re serious?”

The four of them all looked deadly serious and a little scared. Could they really need his help that terribly? All of them looked at him with expectant gazes. Looked at him; a high school student who wasn’t even a mage in way over his head. They wanted his help, desperately needed his help.

“What do you want to do, Master?” his servant asked him. “We might prove useful and they could be valuable allies until Saber’s gone…”

“Should we?”

“You’re the one in charge, Namjoon,” Seokjin said, voice full of support within his head. “It’s your call.”

So Namjoon decided.

“We’ll do it,” he said. The group broke into smiles at his agreeance, except for Taekwoon who just looked silently relieved. Namjoon wondered how much stress he was going through; for how worried Namjoon had been through his entire time as a master. Taekwoon was going through that four times as much for himself and his alliance members. He could respect that about the man; he seemed compassionate and trustworthy enough for Namjoon anyway; so unlike all the stories he had heard of Jung mages.

So he met him and the other three masters at the designated spot to challenge the saber servant and his master. It was five against one, they had to win.

Namjoon just never expected this to be the last time he got to see his Seokjin; the last time he got to see his only comfort in his rapidly darkening world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter completed! I'm really excited for the chapters to come so expect an update in the near future! 
> 
> Oh and I have a question for all of you, I'm just a little curious as to what you all think. You all know pretty much every servant's true identities now... well, except for Ken's. I just wanna know if any of you have an idea as to who Ken actually is. 
> 
> As usual, thanks for reading! 
> 
> Lemme know what you think, all comments are appreciated!


	10. Chapter 10

Taekwoon looked up at the clear night sky; a pure black expanse of nothing. There was too much light and pollution from the very large city he lived in to see any stars but Taekwoon still liked looking up at the sky. There was no moon this night either so the sky was entirely one color. The air was cold; the small breeze, brisk; Taekwoon could see his breath as he exhaled but he didn’t mind the cold. The night was quiet; the only sounds were a distant rumble of cars and the wind blowing through a nearby grove of trees. It calmed Taekwoon, the peace before the storm. The anxiety of the unknown was eating him alive so this moment, however small it may have been, was a small comfort.

“What are you looking at?” Sanghyuk’s voice rang quietly inside his head.

“The sky,” Taekwoon responded, looking over to where his servant stood a way in front of him. He was fully decked out in his armor once more, bident in hand glowing a dark red against the dark night.

“Shame there are no stars.”

“Yeah,” Taekwoon agreed quietly. Once again looking up at the starless night sky. Their conversation died for a moment but Taekwoon could sense his servant’s want to ask a question.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. Sanghyuk laughed a bit before answering.

“I was going to ask if you were all right, Master.” The question disguised as a statement was said carefully with worry dripping from every word. Another small comfort; knowing that Sanghyuk was still looking out for him even amidst imminent danger made him feel better, too.

“Do you think we can all do this?” Taekwoon answered Sanghyuk’s with another question.

“It’s five against one, of course we’re going to win. But, that’s not actually what you’re asking me, is it?”

When Taekwoon didn’t say anything in response, Sanghyuk sighed.

“I honestly don’t know if every one of us will survive…” he said quietly.

“I’m most worried about you.” Taekwoon admitted. “Taemin and Minho will probably target you first, don’t you think?”

“You’re worried about me?” Taekwoon hadn’t expected Sanghyuk to sound so surprised by his words.

“Of course, I am. You’re special to me…” Taekwoon laughed.

“Yeah…” Sanghyuk said, sounding very pleased with what he heard. “But you don’t have to worry about me because I’m not going anywhere ‘till we win this thing.”

“There’s the Sanghyuk I know,” Taekwoon teased; Sanghyuk’s laughter echoed pleasantly in his head.

“Do you think they’ll show up?” Taekwoon asked, looking around their chosen battlefield. He stood near the edge of a rather large park located close to the outskirts of the city. He had figured this was much more discreet than some of their latest battlefields; less of a chance for bystanders to get pulled into the fray. Plus, there wasn’t anywhere for their opponents to hide. It was a big, open, mainly flat grassy park with very few trees so if Minho and Taemin were to arrive everyone would be able to see them do so.

The five pairs of them were placed strategically around the grassy park. Jaehwan and Sanghyuk stood out in the open since they would be the two main fighters against the Saber servant. Hyungwon and Rider, or Seokjin as he had introduced earlier, were flying somewhere above them to survey and offer support during the battle. Their main job would be to make sure no one was able to escape the park. Everyone agreed to have Hakyeon sit this one out on account of what happened during the last battle. And for just in case Jaehwan started fighting friend and foe alike since he’d be their best chance at putting him to sleep.

Hongbin, Wonsik, Hoseok, and Namjoon stood behind Taekwoon; each of them looking equally as worried as he felt. But Taekwoon was most worried about, out of the four teenagers around him, Namjoon’s safety. The boy wasn’t even a mage so what he was doing in this war was completely lost to Taekwoon. But he figured there had to be a reason and regardless of what that actually was, Taekwoon was determined to make sure he went home safely at the end of this battle. The same went for all the other teenagers around him.

“I don’t know if they’ll show,” Sanghyuk answered Taekwoon’s question. “We sent out the summons and it’s up to them to now. They can’t hide from us forever, they have to know we’re all waiting for them.”

His servant had a point but that didn’t change the fact that they had all been waiting on the last pair of master and servant to arrive for the past hour.

“I wish I could see the stars,” Sanghyuk admitted quietly after a bit of a lull in their conversation. “At least once while I’m here.”

“Why’s that?”

“My domain is underground, yes? I don’t get many chances, like ever, to visit the surface…”

“I’m sorry,” Taekwoon empathized. “The light from the city outshines the stars.”

“So I can see.”

“Hyung,” Wonsik said suddenly, interrupting the telepathic communication he had no idea was going on. Taekwoon looked over to Wonsik, silently asking him to continue. “They’re here.”

Wonsik pointed across the way and Taekwoon followed it, seeing two approaching figures in the distance. There were only two people it could possibly be walking towards them so late at night. It seemed the storm had finally come.

When the pair had gotten close enough, Minho shouted the rest of the way over to Taekwoon.

“So we meet again,” he said. “Don’t suppose you’ve thought about my offer at all, have you?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his alliance members shift a little uneasily at Minho’s words. Obviously, that’s exactly what Minho was looking to achieve by announcing something like that to everyone listening. A last-ditch effort to turn anyone standing in this park against the much larger force of servants and to cause distrust amongst the group. Could his alliance members actually distrust him so much as to ever consider the possibility that he would turn on everyone? He really hoped that wasn’t the case.

“Sorry,” Taekwoon said back. “I didn’t.”

It was true. He hadn’t so much as even thought about Minho’s offer all yesterday. There was just no amount of convincing that would sway his want to protect the children fighting with him. Even though after Minho was gone he wouldn’t have much of say in the matter anymore…

“I figured as much,” Minho said with a small chuckle. “I suppose it all ends here for me, then.”

“How do you figure?”

“Taemin either falls in battle or defeats you all,” Minho answered.

“And I,” Taemin spoke up, bursting into a flurry of deep red flames and emerging fully dressed in his armor from the other day. His white hair became slicked back out of his eyes; his black leather armor, tight and protective. He pulled his curved sword out of its sheath and took on a battle stance. “Would much prefer the latter.”

“I’m sure you would,” Sanghyuk spoke up, twirling his lance around from where it had been supporting him in the ground and into a readied position.

“But we all know it’s going to be the former,” Jaehwan agreed, hitching his large scythe off his shoulder and winding it back as well. He looked a little out of place dressed in such a nice suit next to Sanghyuk’s hooded figure and Taemin’s leather clad one. When Taekwoon had asked earlier, Jaehwan answered with: “Someone in such a high position, such as myself, has to look sharp, don’t you think?” Taekwoon just left it at that, too confused to continue on with that conversation.

“I don’t believe we’ve met before,” Taemin said to Jaehwan. “You don’t look like you belong here.”

“Oh, I do, little swordsman,” Jaehwan laughed. “Berserker class, at your service.”

“Oh lovely,” Taemin sighed before turning his attention to Sanghyuk. “Nice to see you again, Lancer. You look a lot more imposing in actual armor.”

“So I’ve been told,” Sanghyuk agreed. “But did you come here to talk to us all night or to fight?”

Taemin laughed.

“My apologies,” he sighed. “Any last words?”

“How about yourself?”

And faster than Taekwoon could blink, the three servants ran at each other. Taemin against Sanghyuk and Jaehwan. It was incredible to watch the Saber servant fight; he was good; easily able to fend off two highly powerful and talented servants. Quick and sharp with not a second of hesitation.

Sanghyuk had reached Taemin first, having a slight speed advantage over Jaehwan. Taemin swung his sword left to avoid getting it stuck between the two prongs of Sanghyuk’s lance. Sanghyuk caught it against the middle of the polearm, pushed the sword off and forced Taemin backwards off him. Just in time for Jaehwan to reach the pair and swing the curved blade of his scythe around to swipe at the enemy servant’s torso. Taemin, having a great speed advantage over the both of them, easily ducked under Jaehwan’s attack and darted towards him. Before he could use his sword to uppercut Jaehwan, Sanghyuk thrust his lance sideways, catching Taemin’s blade between its two prongs and forcing his sword from his hand. The curved blade flew away from Taemin, forcing him to retreat out of his opponents reach.

“How rude,” Taemin complained. His sword disappeared from where it landed in the grass and materialized back in his right hand. “Two against one seems a little unfair, don’t you think?”

Sanghyuk and Jaehwan both laughed, sounding eerily like each other in such a way that made Taekwoon question just who exactly Jaehwan was.

“Are you saying you can’t handle it?” Sanghyuk asked, flipping his polearm around in a few fanciful ways just to show off a little.

“That doesn’t sound like the world’s greatest swordsman to me,” Jaehwan agreed, winding up his own weapon once more.

“If I remember correctly, with the way Greek mythology stands now, you’re not even the god of war anymore,” Sanghyuk continued.

“Ah yes, I remember that… you got replaced by Kratos,” Jaehwan added.

“Are you trying to insult me?” Taemin laughed.

“No, not trying,” Sanghyuk said with a lilt to his voice that Taekwoon recognized. He was one-hundred percent certain his servant was smiling from ear to ear even though his back was turned to him and he had his hood up obscuring his face from view.

“I see,” Taemin’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Well if that’s how you want to play it.”

Then the battle started right back up again with a clang of metal. Taekwoon watched in equal parts awe, worry, and suspicion. Awe because watching three very strong servants fight unrestrained was completely impressive. He’d never get over just how powerful these being actually were. Worry because of course he was worried about his friend. He’d grown rather close to Sanghyuk throughout the week with him and one wrong move, one second of hesitation could mean losing him forever. And suspicion… well that was because of Jaehwan. Not because he didn’t trust the man, no that wasn’t the case. Sure, he could snap at any moment and turn on all of the servants in this park regardless of who they were, but he knew that wasn’t exactly the man’s fault. No, Taekwoon’s suspicion stemmed from something a little different. It hadn’t even occurred to him that maybe he should wonder who exactly the last member of their alliance actually was. He knew of Hakyeon’s real identity, Zelos, the god of jealously and of Hyungwon’s, Thanatos, the god of death. Of course he knew who Sanghyuk was and Seokjin, before the battle, had readily introduced himself as Hermes, god of a very long list of things but mainly messages.

But Jaehwan… he didn’t know anything about him besides his servant class and what weapon he used. There had to be a reason he used a scythe as compared to a more practical weapon. Not to mention the aura he gave off reminded him of Sanghyuk’s in many ways. Not like how Hyungwon’s aura matched Sanghyuk’s; that was more because their powers stemmed from the same place. Jaehwan’s was dark and foreboding yet it felt older, more ancient and developed but so scarily similar. Maybe familial? That didn’t exactly help narrow it down since almost all the gods of Greek mythology were related somehow.

Taekwoon honestly had no clue who he actually was or had been in his time. He only knew that when the time came for when they had to face him in a battle that it was not going to be an easy one.

Looking back to the battle happening in front of him, Sanghyuk was on the offensive, ruthlessly trading blows with the defending Saber servant. Jaehwan was kneeling on the grass, panting heavily and clutching his side with an expression of pain on his face a little ways away from the two still fighting. Blood was leaking through his fingers; Taemin must’ve gotten a good hit in and Taekwoon didn’t think Jaehwan’s suit was much protection against a sharp sword.

“Hoseok!” Taekwoon shouted. The younger immediately came running forward.

“On it!” The proclaimed restoration specialist said, throwing his right hand out in front of him and sending energy through his family crest. The blue lines glowed brightly against his pale skin as he murmured the incantation for a healing spell under his breath. The area under Jaehwan’s hand glowed a pleasant blue as the spell took effect. He stood up shakily, looking to where Sanghyuk had pushed Taemin away, distracting the swordsman away from the injured Jaehwan for the time it took for Hoseok to heal him.

He ran to the enemy servant, swiping his curve-bladed polearm low to the ground when he got close enough, hoping to catch the man’s feet. Instead, Taemin stopped the scythe before it could reach his ankles with a loud clanging, holding it there with all his strength. It took all his concentration since Jaehwan’s class was much more adept in the actual strength aspect. That then gave Sanghyuk the chance to once again knock the servant’s blade out of his hand. Taemin jumped backwards to avoid Jaehwan’s attack. But, this time, instead of letting him escape to safety, both Jaehwan and Sanghyuk followed after him. Both swung their respective weapons dangerously close to the swordsman’s body. A sword, different than the one still laying on the ground away from the battle, materialized in his hand just in time to parry Jaehwan’s scythe. It broke apart on impact but another sword quickly took its place to deflect Sanghyuk’s lance before breaking as well.

Taemin darted quickly away from the pair to buy himself time for his primary sword to return to his hand. Sanghyuk caught up to him quickly, using the opposite end of his weapon to try and place a hit on Taemin. Taemin easily parried the blow and ducked under Sanghyuk’s counter attack. He swung his sword and transferred it to his left hand in one fluid motion. Sanghyuk caught it against his lance but Taemin pressed on, keeping Sanghyuk held in one spot in a blade lock. He threw his free right hand out to the side, catching a small dagger as if materialized in his palm. He flipped it around before moving in fast to stab Sanghyuk in the torso. Thankfully, Sanghyuk saw what Taemin was trying to do and moved away from Taemin, dropping his bident and rushing to the side away from Taemin. The sudden shift caused Taemin to go falling forward just as Jaehwan was attempting another swipe at the swordsman. He quickly shifted his weight, correcting his trajectory with practiced ease, and jumped on the flat part of Jaehwan’s blade, using it to vault himself into the air. He kicked his foot out, barely nicking Jaehwan’s face with his shoe as he spun in the air.

All three servants moved away from each other in that instant, putting a bit of distance between each other. Sanghyuk’s lance was left in the grass where he had dropped it, unable to claim it without provoking Saber to attack once more.

“You use projection magic,” Sanghyuk said.

“What kind of swordsman would I be if I didn’t have a couple backups?” Taemin laughed, dropping the dagger he no longer needed; it was gone before it hit the ground. Taekwoon assumed that the level of projection magic Taemin was able to use only allowed the weapons he created to be good for one attack. “So, I suppose you’re not much of a polearm master if you can’t do the same.”

“Please,” Jaehwan snorted at practically the same time as Sanghyuk. “As if he’d only have one weapon.”

“It’s true,” Sanghyuk shrugged as if it were obvious.

“Is that so?” Taemin asked, all amusement gone from his voice. A dangerous switch had been flipped; one that gave Taekwoon an uneasy feeling. “We’ve been fighting for some time now, though. I think it’s time we end this all, don’t you think?”

Sanghyuk took a cautionary step backwards away from Saber. Taekwoon didn’t blame him; if Taemin was about to do what he thought, their situation just got pretty bad.

“Tell Jaehwan to get out of range,” Taekwoon quickly told Wonsik. He nodded in understanding and Jaehwan instantly disappeared from the battlefield, melting into the ground, and leaving Sanghyuk as the sole person standing against the saber servant.

“What about Sanghyuk?” Hongbin asked, looking just about as worried as Taekwoon felt.

“He’ll be fine,” Taekwoon said despite how worried he was that his statement was incorrect.

“It seems your friend abandoned you,” Taemin said with a playful tone that didn’t match his serious demeanor.

“I wouldn’t take that as a good sign,” Sanghyuk said, pulling the dagger from his belt and unlooping the chains from around his waist. He swung the dagger around in a circle out to the side of him, it was attached to the long silver chain. What a nasty little weapon; though, Taekwoon knew it would only be good for long ranged attacks. If Taemin got close to him, he’d be out of options.

“Why’s that?” Taemin asked, clearly undeterred by Sanghyuk’s words. Red flames slowly started wisping their way up from Taemin’s feet until he was engulfed in the destructive fire. This really wasn’t good. For however long Minho was able to sustain the huge mana drain, Taemin was practically unstoppable. And that time limit was definitely long enough to completely demolish the five servants standing against him if they didn’t do something soon.

“This isn’t good,” Hongbin mumbled.

“No, probably not,” Taekwoon agreed, completely at a loss for what to do now. He had been hoping that Sanghyuk and Jaehwan could defeat the servant before he got the idea to use his ultimate ability but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

“Taekwoon…” Namjoon spoke up, looking frantically between the sky, Taemin’s growing flames, and Taekwoon.

“What is it?”

“Can Sanghyuk distract Saber for a little bit?”

“Possibly… why?”

“Seokjin’s ultimate… Being Hermes… he can sever Saber’s mana supply just enough so he can’t use that fire…”

“You’re sure about this?” Taekwoon asked, looking to Namjoon in surprise. Where was this information before they started this battle?

“Yeah, he just needs to get close enough and he can’t do that if Saber is solely focused on him.”

“Okay,” Taekwoon started, weighing the options as quickly as possible. “Okay, let’s try.”

Namjoon nodded once more, looking up into the sky, presumable talking to his servant.

“Sanghyuk, can you be a distraction long enough for Seokjin to attempt something?” Taekwoon asked telepathically. His servant snorted.

“Can I be a distraction? Please, that’s too easy.”

Taekwoon hoped this wasn’t a mistake asking Sanghyuk to do such a thing.

With almost no hesitation, Sanghyuk ran at Taemin full speed, completely taking everyone off guard. Taemin fumbled with his sword for a moment but before he could get his bearings back, Sanghyuk held up his left arm and jumped into the air. Everyone in the park watched in confusion and then shock as Hyungwon swooped down from the air, almost completely camouflaged against the night sky, and grabbed Sanghyuk’s arm. The pair flew high into the air, well out of Taemin’s reach but continued on towards the swordsman. When Sanghyuk was directly over Taemin, Hyungwon dropped him. He free fell towards Taemin, swinging his chain weapon down with him and using the natural momentum from gravity to strengthen the blow downwards. Completely caught off guard, Taemin just barely caught the dagger against his blade and then just barely moved out of the way to avoid Sanghyuk’s body. He landed hard on his feet, leaving a small crater in his wake. If that had put any sort of strain on his body at all, he didn’t show it. Instead he pulled his chain weapon taunt; it had wrapped around the swordsman’s blade on impact. Taemin lurched forward, looking completely bewildered by what was happening.

“Got your sword,” Sanghyuk teased, pulling suddenly much harder and sharper than before. A loud snap resounded around the park as Sanghyuk’s chain freed itself by breaking Taemin’s sword in two.

“Oops, broke your sword,” Sanghyuk laughed, sounding entirely too happy with himself. “Hope that wasn’t important…”

“Bastard!” Taemin yelled, throwing his broken primary sword on the ground and quickly summoning a throw-away sword. “You will pay for that!”

“You’ll have to catch me first!” Sanghyuk teased, getting picked up once more by Hyungwon and deposited across the clearing. “Catch me if you can!”

Taekwoon rolled his eyes. He should have known his servant would act this way when asked to be distracting. He just hoped he didn’t piss off Taemin too much or get hurt in the process.

Taemin began running at Sanghyuk, summoning blades to deflect Sanghyuk’s chain weapon as he did so. He was entirely consumed by anger, flames still surrounding him as he reached Sanghyuk. Up close, Sanghyuk didn’t have much of a chance without his lance, which was still laying in the grass somewhere in the park. And Taemin was too fast for him to get out of the way quick enough for what was about to happen next.

“You’re out of tricks, Lancer,” Taemin snarled, summoning one small blade lightning quick and lunging at Sanghyuk. Taekwoon found himself screaming as he tried to run for his servant; Hongbin held him back with Wonsik joining in when Taekwoon didn’t relent.

“You can’t stop him! He’ll kill you too!” Hongbin shouted but Taekwoon ignored him. He watched in horror as Taemin shoved the dagger straight through Sanghyuk’s armor and in to his lower gut. Why hadn’t he gotten out of the way? What was he doing? Taemin removed the dagger as Sanghyuk sunk to the ground in pain, throwing the bloodied blade onto the ground and summoning a much bigger one to finish the job.

Taekwoon ripped free from Wonsik and Hongbin’s grasp, beginning to run towards his severely injured servant.

“Don’t come over here,” Sanghyuk’s voice echoed in his head. Calm and clear like he wasn’t even in pain. “You might get hurt.”

Taekwoon didn’t have the heart to respond, sinking down to his knees, completely helpless as he watched Taemin about to murder his servant.

“You put up a good fight, Lancer,” Taemin said, reaching out towards Sanghyuk. “Shame it has to end here…”

Taemin grabbed hold of Sanghyuk’s hood, pulling it back to reveal his face. Taemin gasped in surprise upon seeing the silver crown upon his head, instantly recognizing just who he was dealing with.

“No… what are you doing here?” Taemin yelled. “Hades!”

All the masters in the park shifted uncomfortably. But Taekwoon couldn’t find it in himself to care that his servant’s identity had just been revealed to everyone.

“Guess I still had one trick up my sleeve,” Sanghyuk laughed, blood bubbling through his lips and voice hoarse. “Time’s up.”

“What?” Taemin asked, completely confused by Sanghyuk’s words. Sanghyuk only held a finger to his lips, shushing the servant before then bringing his hand to his ear, cupping it as if he were listening to something.

Listening to the quiet night, distant rumbling was getting louder and louder. The ground shook slightly as Taemin took a step back from Sanghyuk, his flames dying in his confusion. Suddenly, a chariot burst through the nearby grove of trees pulled by four horses. That was exactly what Sanghyuk was waiting for. He grabbed his chain weapon once more and pulled hard. At some point, he had wrapped the chain expertly around Taemin’s ankle and when he pulled, the swordsman fell flat on his stomach. Leaving it all open for Seokjin to leap from his chariot, land next to the flustered servant just as he was standing back up and whack him rather hard on the head with his caduceus.

Taemin looked up at the man in pure confusion.

“That’s it!” Sanghyuk howled with laughter despite how much it must have hurt him. “I can’t believe you just whacked Ares on the head with your stupid staff as your ultimate move!”

Taemin wasn’t so amused.

“Just what the hell was that?” Taemin asked, anger clear in his voice. But in an instant, his anger was replaced with that of complete shock as he yelled with rage: “What have you done!”

Taemin grabbed the collar of the toga Seokjin wore, pulling the taller servant down so they were eye level and face to face. Seokjin smiled mischievously.

“Can’t use those nasty little flames, can you?” Seokjin asked teasingly. Sanghyuk laughed loudly once more as he attempted to stand up.

“I won’t repeat myself, Rider,” Taemin seethed. If he had been able to use those flames they’d be consuming him and Seokjin entirely.

“I severed your mana connection with your master in a way that made it so you can’t use your higher level abilities,” Seokjin bit out. “Just leveling the playing field.”

“You will regret this…” Taemin said, throwing Seokjin away from him. He summoned a sword, swinging it ruthlessly at Seokjin. He was able to deflect the first one with his staff in his surprise but the second attack… The second attack found itself slicing cleanly through Seokjin’s stomach; the attacks had come on too fast, Seokjin wasn’t prepared for them in the least bit. Namjoon went running after his servant in an instant, before any of them could even attempt to stop him. He was yelling Seokjin’s name but it was too late. Red stained the front of Seokjin’s toga as he collapsed to the ground.

Namjoon reached Seokjin just in time to stop his head from colliding with the ground. Despite the fact that Taemin still stood over the servant, Namjoon didn’t even pay him any attention. If not for Seokjin, Taekwoon feared that he would have been in Namjoon’s place. He felt completely devastated that he wasn’t able to do more for the pair of them, that he had sat frozen and helpless on the ground instead of trying to do something, to change the outcome of what had transpired in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Seokjin asked Namjoon, looking up at him with a small smile on his face regardless of the pain he must be feeling.

“You’re hurt,” Namjoon said, clearly holding back tears for his friend.

“Could you come closer?” Seokjin asked. “My stomach hurts too much to lean up.”

“Yeah, anything,” Namjoon said, complying with Seokjin’s request and leaning down a bit more. Seokjin pressed his lips carefully against Namjoon’s in a soft kiss. When he pulled away he gave another small laugh.

“I wanted to do that before I go,” Seokjin said. “Oh hey, I have to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s a hamburger’s favorite color?”

“At a time like this, you dork,” Namjoon laughed, the tears leaking from his eyes.

“Please?”

“I don’t know,” Namjoon gave in. “What is a hamburger’s favorite color.”

“Burgundy.”

Seokjin gave one last laugh with Namjoon before he faded from sight, leaving his master alone in the middle of the battlefield. Taemin stood over them, watching the exchange between dying servant and master with a sad expression on his face.

“You’re rather brave,” he said to Namjoon. The boy looked up at him, tear tracks shining in the dim lighting. “For someone who’s not a mage.”

“I’m not your target, killing me would just be useless now,” Namjoon said, not an ounce of fear in his voice.

“I suppose you have a point,” Taemin laughed. “I have another servant to finish off anyway.”

“We’re going to defeat you,” Namjoon said.

“I’m not going down without taking a few of you down with me,” Taemin laughed. He began walking back over to Sanghyuk, who had just managed to stand up.

“Going to kill me, are you?” Sanghyuk teased, holding his wound with his blood covered hands. He was doubled over in pain yet still had that stupid, mischievous smile on his face.

“You know it,” Taemin said, creating a brand-new sword in his hand.

Taekwoon stood up, beginning to run over to his servant despite the yells from the three teenagers behind him. He stood between Sanghyuk and the Saber servant, arms held out protectively. He wasn’t going to let another person die on his watch. Not without doing something to try and stop it.

“What are you doing?” Sanghyuk asked, worry filled his voice.

“Protecting my friend, I’m not losing you tonight,” Taekwoon said. Taemin laughed.

“There are many brave warriors in this park tonight,” he said. “I’d commend you all on your bravery if we weren’t enemies, but in this moment, I can only say this is rather foolish of you.”

“I don’t care,” Taekwoon said. “You want him, you have to kill me first.”

“What are you saying!?” Sanghyuk hissed. “If I die…”

“It doesn’t mean nothing, not to me,” Taekwoon said cutting off what he knew his servant was going to say.

“You’re completely insane!”

“This is a strange turn of events,” Taemin laughed. “A master protecting his servant… Well if that’s how you want to play it then by all mean, be my guest.”

Taemin lunged at Taekwoon and the sword would’ve easily killed him, straight through his heart, but that didn’t happen. Instead, halfway between him and Taemin, Jaehwan materialized out of thin air and deflected the fake sword with his scythe and a volley of small daggers rained down from the sky as Hyungwon joined Jaehwan on the ground. Hakyeon formed out of a thousand purple sparkles, snapping his fingers and causing the blade Taemin held to break apart in his hand. They formed a blockade between Sanghyuk and Taekwoon and Taemin; Taemin quickly backed off from his attack.

“Did you forget about us?” Jaehwan cooed mockingly. “Silly little swordsman.”

“Hades isn’t the only servant left in this park,” Hyungwon agreed.

“And we feel a little cheated,” Hakyeon added. “It’s a little insulting really.”

“So, little swordsman? Which of us are you going to take down with you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An action packed chapter for you all; it's starting to get pretty intense. But I'm pretty happy with how this chapter turned out so let me know what you all think. 
> 
> Oh and I know I asked this in the last chapter and I got a pretty interesting comment ruling out some of the gods on what Ken's real identity could be but I'm still kind of curious to know what everyone else thinks. Whether or not that comment was correct in its assessment or not is a different story but I thought they brought up some nice points. 
> 
> Regardless, thanks for reading! 
> 
> All comments appreciated!


	11. Hoseok

Hoseok had always been a pretty decent mage, which was quite the achievement in actuality since he was the first in his family to ever have been born a magic user. He wasn’t nearly as naturally gifted as Hongbin or as well disciplined and tactical as Wonsik, but he definitely wasn’t anywhere near horrible. Maybe somewhere in the middle; wholly and completely average. 

Being a first-generation mage, where no one in his family before him had been one, was a rather tough lifestyle. He didn’t have a family crest; he had to start his own. There were no ancient family texts being passed down from generation to generation; he had to buy his own. His parents couldn’t teach him the ways of a magic filled world which was usually the most common way mage’s learned; he had to find his own teachers. In fact, for most of his life, he was completely oblivious to his magical talents. It wasn’t until his now best friends, Hongbin and Wonsik, had approached him one morning at school and told him of this magical world that coexisted with the regular world. He hadn’t believed them at first, obviously. No logical person would have. Two strangers who he’d never had a conversation with before in his life suddenly coming up to him and telling him that he was a mage was a lot to take in; how could they have honestly expected him to believe them without some sort of proof? But then they both pulled their sleeves up, revealing glowing blue lines all up their arm: Hongbin’s left and Wonsik’s right. No one else around them even reacted to the clearly unnatural tattoos of a sort; he was told later that only other mages could see family crests. He had believed them after they caused books to fly around the empty class room and then magically clean everything right back up. 

Unfortunately for Hoseok, along with his new-found knowledge of his powers came the challenge of informing his parents of the situation. Thankfully, by a miracle perhaps, his father had known a few guys from back in his university years that had the same unnatural talent as Hongbin, Wonsik, and him so the whole ordeal was a lot easier to get through than Hoseok was anticipating. Hongbin and Wonsik had introduced themselves to his parents then, saying they would help their son in his studies as much as they could. If they really wanted him to become a serious mage, however, they might consider putting him through some classes with the Mage’s Association. 

His parents, like himself, were very overwhelmed by this sudden onslaught of information. It was only natural after all. Suddenly learning that there was this whole other world of people that coexisted next to them for their entire lives and never once even suspecting that magic could be real was a lot to take in. Hoseok had gone to school with Wonsik and Hongbin for years, never once had he talked to them before they approached him that day, never once had he thought they were actually something supernatural. He wondered just how many people he walked by every day were leading dual lives without anyone suspecting a thing. 

He had asked Hongbin and Wonsik once why they came to him with the intention of telling him everything. It really wasn’t their business and though he was glad they did introduce him to the world of magic, he couldn’t understand why they would do such a thing for a complete stranger. 

“We thought that you were getting trained by your family like we were at first,” Hongbin started. 

“Then we realized when you came of age you didn’t receive a family crest like we did…” Wonsik continued. “A little bit of research showed us that you were the first mage to be born to your family.” 

“But why tell me at all? Why not just let me continue living as I had been?” 

“Well magic is a tricky thing,” Hongbin started hesitantly, like he was suddenly afraid of scaring Hoseok with the information he was about to tell him. “Your ability to use magic builds within you from the moment you’re born whether you actually use it or not. Untrained mages become more and more dangerous the longer they don’t realize they can use magic.” 

“Usually they’ll end up causing a pretty bad accident. Like you’ll get into a fight with someone, get really angry and burn the entire house down on accident because you unknowingly activated a bunch of magic circuits with your emotions,” Wonsik added. 

“Oh…” Hoseok said, suddenly very grateful towards his new friends. “Well thanks then…” 

“Of course,” Hongbin smiled. 

“What are friends for?” 

Hoseok really was glad he had such talented friends. It made him feel like he always had someone to go to if things got too hard or he didn’t understand a particularly challenging concept; especially since he was taking his magic lessons online through the Mage’s Association. 

On Hongbin and Wonsik’s advice, his parents signed him up for the schooling without so much as a second thought. It really was quality schooling, even if it was all online. He always found it funny, whenever he sat down at his desk for his lessons of the night, how a school for magic had an online option but he supposed even mages kept up with normal human technology. It wasn’t easy though; perhaps even harder than if he were actually getting taught the lessons in person. He had no idea what he was doing going in to all this and the website only offered a single explanation for how to do things so if he didn’t understand that one, he was a little screwed. He didn’t have someone to explain things in a different way on call, to tell him if he was on the right track, or if he was over thinking the problem too much. So having Hongbin and Wonsik was a godsend; if he couldn’t figure something out, they were always willing to help. 

So ever so slowly, Hoseok learned how to use his abilities. Over the two years he began studying, he created his own magic crest, remembering every time he learned a new spell to etch its teachings in to his arm. Hongbin had said that even the most basic of spells should be put there so neither he nor his future descendants ever had to worry about forgetting them. The whole point of a crest was to pass a family’s teachings on from generation to generation, to continue to add to it so that one day they might discover everything there is to know about magic so even the most basic of spells had a place. Once he had started making his crest, he began to understand just what Hongbin had been talking about. Suddenly his spells became a lot easier to cast; he didn’t have to remember incantations or have to gather components any longer. He could simply think of what he wanted to happen and it would happen. Magic really was a convenient skill to have and a magic crest just made it all the more useful. 

But through his two years of schooling, Hoseok had really taken a liking to the restoration school of magic. He read tens of thousands of spells through his lessons, each of them usually meant to do something of a harmful nature. He had never been much for violence, and using his new, wonderful talent to harm others sounded absolutely horrible. But healing spells… helping people, getting rid of their ailments and making them happier… he could get behind that. So he began focusing his studies towards restoration. There was no one to tell him otherwise; he was the first mage of his entire family; he could study whatever he pleased. It had been rather overwhelming at first, but once he had found his calling and ran with it, he was ultimately very happy with his choices. 

Unfortunately, taking courses through the Mage’s Association also came with a price. A rather large price tag, that is. Hoseok himself didn’t have the means to pay for it all. He was only a high school student and even if he managed to get a job and keep it between his insanely busy schedule, there was just no way still he’d be able to cover all the expenses. His parents had always been supportive, though, and were more than willing to help him pay for his supernatural college. His parents were so proud of him after all. His brother thought it was the coolest thing that his hyung was a ‘wizard’ like in the movies. 

Hoseok wasn’t stupid, though. He knew that paying for all these classes couldn’t be easy on them. They never talked about it; only continued to ask if they could see what he was learning. They were always understandably in awe over the simplest of spells: like making his books float around the room or causing little cuts and bruises to disappear completely. But Hoseok knew, it was hard not to. Little things cued him in to just how much his parents were actually struggling. Something expensive would go missing from the house and everyone acted like it was never there in the first place. They stopped going out to eat so often. Clothes were borrowed and handed down from older family members and distant relatives. Hoseok’s father worked over time almost every night and his mother began to take on two jobs ever though she acted like she still had only one. 

He knew. And he felt horrible about the whole thing. He tried to help as best he could; he really did. He got a job for himself, somehow managing to balance all his schooling on top of it. His parents kept telling him it wasn’t necessary, but he never listened. He wanted to help in any way he could; it was his fault they were in this mess in the first place. His friends were always supportive but there was only so much they could do. Hongbin had lost his entire family in some sort of dispute between mages wherein Hongbin was the sole survivor at fourteen. And Wonsik had enough problems of his own being forced down a path he had no interest in pursuing. So Hoseok really couldn’t bring himself to ask them for any more help than they had already given; they had enough on their plates without his problems too. 

When Hoseok was chosen by the Holy Grail, and got what the hell that even meant explained to him, he decided he would win the thing for his family. So he didn’t have to see his parents look so exhausted when they thought no one was around to see. So they could live happily knowing their son would be okay in this brand new world. Even if he had to go through his friends, and felt completely awful about possibly taking their wishes away, it was something he absolutely had to do. It was the least he could do for his family at this point. 

Summoning his servant hadn’t been terribly hard, certainly not nearly as straining as Hongbin’s but not quite as easy as Wonsik’s. He felt a bit light-headed after the incantation was said but nothing a little revitalization spell couldn’t fix. When he was able to see straight again and all the mess of magical mumbo-jumbo that he didn’t understand the need for died down, a rather imposing man stood in his backyard. The first thing Hoseok had noticed were the large, black, feathered wings on his back. It was a bit hard not to with their size, after all. The man was also noticeably taller than Hoseok yet much slighter and ganglier at the same time. He was dressed in tight, black armor, accentuation how skinny the man actually was. There were numerous nasty-looking daggers hanging from his belt and a dark hood was pulled over his face, completely obscuring whatever was underneath. 

Upon being summoned, the man had immediately knelt down to one knee, almost as if it were a habit, and announced his loyalty. 

“Assassin class: Thanatos, God of Death, servant to the underworld and my lord Hades,” he had said. “But in this world, my blades are yours.” 

Hoseok had immediately ushered the man up, feeling rather embarrassed by such a formal greeting. Bowing was a pretty standard way of showing respect in his culture but going down on one knee and swearing complete loyalty was a little much. But then, it really didn’t take long for Hoseok to find out that Thanatos was a pretty strange guy. He was very quiet, hardly ever speaking unless spoken to and whenever Hoseok did start talking to him, he always seemed rather surprised. Hoseok supposed not many ‘mortals’ actually wanted to have a conversation with Death itself but surely the man wasn’t a stranger to normal conversation. He guessed that was always why the man looked so solemn all the time as well; being the personification of death couldn’t be very easy on a person, even an immortal god. But he was also strangely caring on occasion. It always threw Hoseok for a loop considering he had never thought of Death to be so caring. When Hoseok was up late at night, studying well into the night since he hardly a chance to do so during the day between everything else, the man had actually made him food. He reprimanded him on more than one occasion about not taking better care of himself before forcing him to eat the ramyeon that he had made himself, and then also forcing him to sleep when it got way too late for him to still be up and expected to go to school in the morning. Sometimes, the man had actually helped him through some of his magic lessons. He said the he knew a bit about the ways of mages from a few of the gods that also took up residency in the underworld and as such had some insight to what Hoseok was doing. His explanations of certain subjects always made them easier to understand. He didn’t know what it was about the god, but the two of them just clicked. Hoseok was very glad to have someone like Thanatos to work with, even if he was a bit cold on some occasions, Hoseok knew he cared immensely. 

“I think you need a name for when we have to go out in public,” Hoseok brought up a week after he had summoned Thanatos. 

“Why? I’m an assassin type servant, I shouldn’t be seen in public,” the man quickly countered. 

“Yeah, but my friends are also in this war… we were planning on helping each other out against the other four and I don’t want them to know your true name if we’ll have to fight in the end.” 

“I understand but then can’t you just call me Assassin?” 

“That doesn’t sound very friend-like…” 

“Do you consider us friends? We just met.” 

“You’re a rather cold guy…” Hoseok said, suddenly wishing he hadn’t brought this up at all. He didn’t expect such a harsh reaction. 

“I…” the man paused, pulling back his hood with a sigh. He was rather handsome, it was almost unreal if Hoseok were to be honest. But he supposed all the Greek gods, with the exception of a few, were said to be beautiful and even Death itself wouldn’t be any different. He looked rather sad though, even when his face was just resting. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to people talking to me.” 

“That’s okay,” Hoseok immediately said. “I’m not very good at talking to people either.” 

Thanatos nodded in understanding, waiting for Hoseok to continue. 

“I’m not much of a mage, either. I only started learning about two years ago but I’m going to win this thing with you,” Hoseok said. Thanatos gave a small smile at that but offered nothing else. “And I think I’m going to call you Hyungwon from now on.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I think it’s fitting, and you wouldn’t pick a name for yourself anyway.” 

“Fine,” Hyungwon caved in with a sigh. “You may call me that for my time here if you so desire.” 

The next day, during lunch at school, he met with Hongbin and Wonsik to discuss strategy. Hongbin had just returned to school from being out sick for a couple days. Summoning his servant had put him through quite a bit of stress and they had lost a lot of valuable time waiting for him to recover. 

“Did you summon your servant?” Wonsik asked, rubbing absentmindedly at the red command seals on the back of his hand. Hoseok nodded in response. 

“Yeah, Hyungwon’s an Assassin class,” Hoseok explained. 

“Gave him a name too?” Hongbin laughed. 

“I didn’t think we should call him by his real name,” Hoseok explained. Hongbin offered a nod in agreement. 

“Yeah,” Wonsik also agreed. “I summoned the Berserker class, he wanted to be called Jaehwan.” 

“Wait… you summoned Berserker?” Hongbin asked, sounding a little skeptical. His reasons for being worried were lost on Hoseok. “You have to use a special incantation to summon a Berserker.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Wonsik said. “They’re also insanely strong and I want to win this thing. No offense to any of you or anything.” 

Hongbin rolled his eyes, Hoseok gave a short laugh. 

“Are you sure you can handle a Berserker?” Hongbin asked. 

“He’s not that bad, really,” Wonsik said slowly, looking like he was thinking back to every single interaction he’s had with his servant until then. “I think he’ll help us get to the point where it’s just us left. We needed a heavy hitter.” 

“You have a point,” Hoseok said. He knew that he hadn’t summoned one of the top tier servants and he hadn’t known that he needed a special incantation to summon a Berserker so he was willing to rely heavily on his friends. Until the final battle, he’d be okay with staying on the down low. “What’s your servant, Hongbin?” 

“Caster,” Hongbin answered simply. “We decided on the name Hakyeon.” 

They talked through the entirety of their lunch break. Discussing the other servants that had been summoned and the lack of one last mage to fill in the seventh spot. They figured he or she would show up eventually and probably wouldn’t be anything special so they didn’t worry about who that person would be. They thought, for the most part, that they’d be golden right up until the very end. 

But of course, they had been terribly wrong. 

Hongbin had gotten attacked that day. The saber servant and his master had found him. The Choi’s family mage was brutal, but thankfully Hyungwon had been surveying the city at the time and was able to distract the servant long enough for them to escape. It shook them all to their very core. The very real threat of death finally sinking in and terrifying them completely. They decided they needed a fourth member to really give them the best of odds of being taken to the end; having the majority would greatly increase their chances and hopefully someone powerful would join their cause. When they heard that the seventh mage had finally been chosen, Hongbin and Hakyeon had gone to check him out. They quickly discovered that the wild-card Jung family had done it again, taking everyone by surprised with their abilities. Taekwoon had been exactly the mage they were hoping for. 

He was quiet and shy and constantly looked like he didn’t want to be wherever he was; he almost reminded Hoseok of Hyungwon sometimes with his quiet way of going about life. But he was incredibly kind and caring; Hoseok didn’t know what his real reasonings for joining their little alliance, but if he had to guess he’d say he only did it to keep the three of them safe. He admired that about Taekwoon. How he didn’t care about what everyone expected a mage of his abilities to act like and constantly strived to go against it. Hell, the man had even saved Hyungwon’s life when letting him die on Hongbin’s floor would’ve been much more beneficial to him in the long run. If they weren’t in this horrible war, he would like to think he and Taekwoon would be good friends. 

His servant, Sanghyuk of the Lancer class, was a completely different story though. The two were practically complete opposites. Sanghyuk was loud and playful; he was very forward and said what he was thinking yet maintained such a mysterious aura about himself. The very first time Hyungwon had seen the man during the battle at the library, he had immediately recognized Sanghyuk for who he was. Hades, God of the Underworld and basically Hyungwon’s boss. He seemed like a nice enough guy, though; completely different from what Hoseok would’ve expected from one of the most feared gods in Ancient Greek culture. He decided to keep that information between himself and Hyungwon, though. Perhaps he trusted Taekwoon more than he should have but he didn’t want to give up that information to everyone. With Sanghyuk’s true name, he had a bit of edge over everyone else. Sure, Taekwoon was told of Hyungwon’s real identity as well but again, he trusted the man and Hoseok really didn’t think Taekwoon had a mean bone in his body. Sometimes he felt a bit bad about exploiting Taekwoon’s kindness… but he figured he could make it up to him after this whole mess was over. 

He really did like Taekwoon and the constant struggle within himself against having to fight a friend to win the ultimate prize hurt him. He hated the idea of turning against, not only Taekwoon, but also against Hongbin and Wonsik. As much as he didn’t like to admit it, he didn’t have a mean bone in his body either. He hated, absolutely despised the concept of fighting his friends, new and old. That was the whole reason he went in to the restoration field in the first place: to help instead of hurt. He may have been a bigger guy, looked a little more threatening despite his short stature as compared to Hongbin and Wonsik, but that completely contradicted his personality. 

One night in particular he had felt absolutely miserable, thinking about all these internal conflicts while staying in the bedroom Taekwoon had given to him the night before they would go search for Rider and take down Saber. He’d always been a rather emotional guy so it wasn’t much of a surprise when he found himself crying freely about the whole situation. 

He hated what he had become in such a short amount of time. Could he really disregard his very nature to win his wish? He wanted to win for his family so terribly bad but he didn’t think he could do it if it meant going through and possibly harming his friends. He also really didn’t want to lose Hyungwon on top of everything else. The man had been such a comfort in his life lately: a quiet but calming presence. He did little things for Hoseok that always made his day but were absolutely not in his job description as a heroic spirit yet he still did them anyway: making him food, making sure he slept enough, and helping him through difficult lessons. The thought of losing him hurt even more than the thought of losing the war. But one of those was inevitable; even if he won, he’d still lose Hyungwon. The man had his own wish to fulfill, his own reason for being here and his own life to go back to afterwards. 

“You’re thinking too much again,” Hyungwon said, melting out of the shadows and completely taking Hoseok from his thoughts in an instant. “I can practically hear you across town.” 

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok sniffled, wiping carefully at his eyes and then his nose with his shirt sleeve. Hyungwon’s face took on a concerned expression as he realized just what kind of mental state his master was in. 

“Don’t apologize,” he whispered, instantly scooping Hoseok up in his arms. It might’ve been more comforting of a hug if Hyungwon had actually been warm but Hoseok couldn’t find it in himself to want it that way. This hug was entirely Hyungwon, cold skin and all. He automatically buried his face in the man’s chest, wrapping his arms around Hyungwon’s smaller yet taller frame in return. “Why are you crying?” 

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok apologized again. “It just sort of happens when I start thinking about things.” 

“What kinds of things?” 

“How I don’t want to fight my friends. Taekwoon-hyung has been so nice to us and Hongbin and Wonsik have always been there for me…” he started to explain, pulling away from Hyungwon just enough to look up at him. He didn’t remove his arms and neither did Hyungwon much to his surprise. He hadn’t taken the man to be much for skinship but he was quickly finding out that was a poorly made assumption. “And how I don’t want to lose you…” 

“Me?” Hyungwon asked, a completely perplexed look on his face.

“Oh come on,” Hoseok gave a small laugh. “Don’t tell me you don’t value our time together.” 

“I didn’t think I meant that much to you…” Hyungwon admitted quietly. 

“What gave you that idea?” 

“I’m not really sure, I just kind of assumed that since I’m literally Death that no one would like me very much…” 

Instead of responding to that horrible assumption, Hoseok hoped to convey his feelings in a more physical way. Maybe that would get through to Hyungwon a bit more seriously than just telling him everything. He kissed him in that moment, going up on his tip toes just a bit to be able to actually reach the man’s lips. Hyungwon had been completely shocked, probably since this had never happened before in his life but still, he didn’t stop Hoseok. When he pulled away, Hoseok saw an expression on Hyungwon’s face that he hadn’t seen before. Something that he hopefully correctly identified to be affection. 

“You won’t lose me,” Hyungwon said quietly, leaning his forehead down against Hoseok’s and closing his eyes contently. “One way or another, we’ll make it through this together.” 

But he should’ve known there was just no possible way Hyungwon could keep such a promise. 

Watching Hyungwon and Sanghyuk work together to fight Saber had been quite the surprise. Hoseok had known the two of them knew each other but he hadn’t expected them to be as close as they clearly were. The way they just automatically knew what to do to support each other, the way Sanghyuk completely trusted that Hyungwon would catch him looked as if it were practiced before. Of course they must’ve fought together before; there were tons of stories of disputes between gods and simple misunderstandings that turned in to huge conflicts. But Hoseok hadn’t expected this closeness. Sanghyuk was Hyungwon’s first master… he worried for a time when he would have to pick between the two masters he had sworn allegiance to. Would he put his life in danger for Sanghyuk just as quickly as he did for Hoseok? 

Unfortunately, Hoseok found the answer to that question a bit too late to stop Hyungwon from making such a choice. 

After Sanghyuk went down and Taekwoon blindly rushed on to the battlefield with probably a death wish, the three of them left decided that they had to do something. As reckless as Taekwoon could be when it came to the people he cared about, Hoseok, Hongbin and Wonsik couldn’t just let the man get killed for it. He had helped them way too much by this point to do that. Quickly, they sent their servants into the fray to hopefully distract Saber long enough for Taekwoon to heal Sanghyuk. Hoseok had tried after Seokjin showed up to pull the swordsman’s attention away from Sanghyuk but his spell hadn’t worked. He didn’t know the higher-level stuff yet and Sanghyuk was seriously injured well above his skill level in restoration magic. 

Jaehwan looked to be their forerunner, completely on the offensive and pushing the swordsman back away from Sanghyuk just as Sanghyuk had done for Jaehwan when he was injured earlier in the battle. But in actuality, Jaehwan was more of a distraction than anything else. He was too slow to really get a hit in with his hugely impractical scythe and the few hits he did get in were easily blocked by the swordsman. Hyungwon was more of their main attacker, hidden in the shadows but just as fast if not faster than the saber servant himself. As the man was being herded away by Jaehwan, Hyungwon was relentless in his attempts to get one of his endless supplies of daggers to hit. Hakyeon was more of an annoyance than anything else: constantly causing the swordsman’s magically created weapons to break apart before their time and setting small fires in the grass right where the man would try to run to safety. 

But even with all this going on, Saber was completely fine. Sure, he looked a little ragged and positively pissed off that he hadn’t been able to kill Sanghyuk before the rest of the servants showed up but besides that, the man was no worse for the wear. He looked like he could go on all night, easily deflecting Hyungwon’s blades and Jaehwan’s curved scythe all the while avoiding Hakyeon’s tricks. The man truly was a legend but Hoseok figured something would give eventually. Whether it was Minho’s mana supply, which really didn’t seem to be fading in the slightest, or one of their servants, Hoseok could only hope Hyungwon came out of this safely. 

“This is getting rather tedious,” Saber complained after successfully evading all three servant’s attacks for quite some time. 

“You could just surrender,” Hakyeon offered from his spot above the battlefield, his cloak having transformed into large, white, feathered wings like Hyungwon’s except for in color. He looked a little annoyed himself. Probably because he hadn’t been expecting to fight during this battle at all and now it just kept dragging on.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Jaehwan agreed. 

“Like I said,” Saber started, looking past all the servants standing against him to something behind them. Hoseok followed his line of sight, singling in on with a feeling of horror settling in his stomach Taekwoon and his servant. Sanghyuk was just beginning to stand on his own now. He saw the tell-tale light of a healing spell coming from Taekwoon’s hands but it wasn’t working nearly fast enough for Sanghyuk to be ready for what was about to come his way. The three servants’ distraction techniques hadn’t worked nearly well enough. “I’m not going down without taking a few of you with me.” 

Without even a second of hesitation, the man sprang at lightning speed towards the still injured and completely unaware servant. Straight passed all the surprised servants still facing him down before any of them could react fast enough, Saber quickly gained ground on the unassuming pair. Sanghyuk noticed the approaching doom first; Taekwoon’s back was turned away from the battle. With complete certainty and a resigned look on his face, Sanghyuk pushed his master out of the way and on to the ground, bracing himself for the fatal blow coming his way. 

Time seemed to move in slow motion for what happened next, almost like a spell had been placed over the battlefield, giving Hoseok the time to see just what was about to happen. His own servant, his Hyungwon, had begun to move towards the saber servant as well. 

“What are you doing?!” Hoseok called to his servant. “Get out of there!” 

And despite the use of a command seal while giving the order, his servant did not listen to him. He moved fast, faster than Saber, as he moved to stand between the oncoming servant and his original master with complete certainty. Hoseok tried again, hoping to get his Hyungwon out of harm’s way and using another command seal. Even still, the servant resisted, completely set on protecting his master from the underworld till the very end. 

Saber didn’t even notice when he swung his blade down that the man he was hitting was not his original target. And if he did, he really didn’t care with how effortlessly he cut down Hyungwon. Hoseok’s servant crumpled to the ground right as Hoseok sunk to his knees in shock. There wasn’t anything he could do; he knew that the cut his servant received was fatal and completely beyond his healing ability, probably even beyond Taekwoon’s. Sanghyuk stood completely motionless, watching a man who he thought of as a son take a killing blow meant for him; Taekwoon looked up at the scene with a look of horror to match as blood splattered from the cut. 

“I can’t tell if you all are incredibly brave or just plain stupid,” Saber said, watching the sacrificed servant lay motionless on the ground as he began to slowly dematerialize. “Perhaps a bit of both.” 

Hoseok wanted to run over to his poor, dying servant but he knew how stupid running into that battlefield would be. He wasn’t Taekwoon; he couldn’t defend himself with magic if Saber decided to come after him. So he sat on the ground, completely shocked to silence as tears began to cascade down his cheeks. This couldn’t be happening… he couldn’t be losing him… there was just no way. He hadn’t prepared himself for this. He didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. 

“You’re thinking too much again,” Hyungwon’s quiet voice whispered in his head. 

“You’re dying,” Hoseok choked out, he could hear the tears in his voice even in his head. 

“Ironic, isn’t it? That Death is now dying,” Hyungwon laughed. There wasn’t an ounce of pain in his voice despite how badly he must’ve been hurting in this moment. He sounded content if anything, a little sad, completely bittersweet. “But I’m not upset, meeting you was more than I ever could’ve asked for.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You never did ask me what my wish was for the Grail, did you?” Hyungwon asked, giving another bittersweet laugh. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, I’ve already gotten my wish even if we haven’t won.” 

“How could you do that?” Hoseok whispered. “Why didn’t you listen to me?” 

“I’m sorry,” Hyungwon’s voice went even quieter. He sounded ashamed of himself, completely guilty. 

“Don’t apologize,” Hoseok said. He couldn’t stay mad at the servant. He understood his reasonings even if he didn’t say them. Hoseok just didn’t want to lose him yet. “I’m going to miss you.” 

“Won’t you smile for me, Hoseok? One last time… before I go?” The man asked. His own little way of saying he’d miss Hoseok too. 

Hoseok quickly complied with his servant’s last request, hoping it was actually a smile and not a grimace through the tears. He couldn’t help it, even as he felt Hongbin come to his side on the ground to comfort him, tears fell freely down his face. Yet he smiled through the pain, for the man who had become so much to him in such a short amount of time. 

“Yes… like that…” 

And then Hoseok couldn’t feel Hyungwon’s presence any longer. His body vanished from the battlefield just as Hoseok’s smile vanished from his face, sadness completely taking over as he mourned the loss of his Hyungwon, who’s only wish was for someone to love and be loved in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one down ;-; so sad. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments are appreciated!


	12. Chapter 12

The battlefield was eerily quiet. Taekwoon was frozen in place, looking to the place where a servant once stood, where now only blood stained the grass red.

Taemin had killed another servant, another friend, another wish that would never get granted. Sanghyuk had pushed Taekwoon out of the way to where he lay in the grass now, thinking he would be the one sacrificing his life for another’s. Instead, he was left staring at the spot where an old friend had protected him against his master’s will. The look of shock on his face slowly began to give way to complete rage. Taekwoon could practically feel the anger pouring off his servant, definitely a rival to Taemin’s own earlier in the battle. He lashed out at Taemin, grabbing the dagger attached to its chain and clashing blades with the swordsman. Taemin easily deflected the blow but Sanghyuk wasn’t backing off. He threw his blade at the saber servant, letting the dagger slip from his hand to then grab on to the chain. In his surprise at Sanghyuk’s ferocity, Taemin retreated away from him, clearly not expecting a mortally wounded servant to attack so fervently.

“You,” Sanghyuk started, his voice sounding infinitely more dangerous than mere seconds ago. “Have taken your last life tonight.”

“Ooo, is this your serious voice? I’m quivering,” Taemin teased, not taking the obvious threat to his life serious in the least bit.

“Master,” Sanghyuk said, turning to Taekwoon and ignoring Taemin’s jabs. His voice was noticeably less harsh when speaking to Taekwoon as opposed to Taemin. He offered a hand, which Taekwoon easily took, and effortlessly pulled him up to his feet.

“I need you to stop running out onto battlefields,” Sanghyuk said with a quiet laugh.

“Only if you promise to stop getting hurt.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Then neither can I.”

Sanghyuk gave another quiet chuckle.

“I expected nothing less.”

Taekwoon saw the sadness in his servant’s eyes in that moment. If Taekwoon was feeling the weight of losing Hyungwon to Taemin then surely Sanghyuk’s pain was tenfold. When Taekwoon thought about Sanghyuk’s request, he supposed Sanghyuk had only asked for him to stop running out to the battlefield so that he could avoid losing another person close to him. Taekwoon’s heart filled with an emotion he wasn’t sure he wanted to put a name to just yet as he stood in front of his servant. With no hesitation and the determination to make sure Sanghyuk didn’t lose anyone else on this night, he surged towards his servant. The man was still severely injured and Taekwoon was certain Taemin wouldn’t wait around for him to finished healing Sanghyuk. So he opted for the next best thing. He grabbed either side of Sanghyuk’s face and placed a firm kiss on his lips. Sanghyuk didn’t move, clearly surprised by Taekwoon’s actions. This was the quickest way though, save for using one of his three command seals, to transfer a large amount of mana over to his servant. If he couldn’t heal him, the least he could do was give him the strength to overcome the pain. He knew all eyes in the park were on him as he kissed Sanghyuk, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. This could very well be the last time he got to interact with his servant, so he poured everything he could, every emotion, everything he was feeling, in to this kiss.

A few quick seconds left Taekwoon feeling light-headed since his servant had used quite a bit of his mana stores already. He pulled away from Sanghyuk, watching the man’s eyes flutter open as his face took on a rather dreamy expression. The kiss had succeeded in doing what Taekwoon had hoped; Sanghyuk looked positively energized.

“Finish this,” Taekwoon whispered. He saw a flash of pure determination go through Sanghyuk’s brown eyes as he nodded with certainty.

“With pleasure.”

Sanghyuk stepped away from Taekwoon, facing down Taemin once again. He threw his right arm out to the side and waited. Nothing happened at first but a few seconds of waiting later, Sanghyuk’s lance flew in to his outstretched hand with a metallic ping echoing through the quiet park. He flipped it around his body through both hands twice before bracing it against his back and readying himself. Could he have called his lance back to him this entire time? Taekwoon figured he probably hadn’t done so earlier because of how long it had actually taken for it to return, time he really hadn’t had in the thick of battle.

“Ready for round two?” He asked the servant a good twenty feet away.

“Finally ready to fight, I see,” Taemin said, summoning a singular, large blade much like his original to his hand.

“Just needed a mana boost,” Sanghyuk brushed off. “I’m sure you understand.”

Taemin said nothing in response. The two servants stared each other down for a moment.

“Now then, let’s finish this,” Sanghyuk said, pulling his hood back over his head in one fluid motion. His voice took on that all-powerful aura once again, sounding deeper, darker, and a hell of a lot more threatening as the full force of Sanghyuk’s power was unleashed. Taekwoon suddenly understood why Sanghyuk hadn’t been fighting to the full extent of his abilities. Had he done so during previous battles, every servant in the city would have recognized him immediately. But now, after Taemin had revealed his identity to everyone in the park, there was no reason to continue to hide. Once again, Taekwoon felt incredibly happy that Sanghyuk was his servant because when the man finally got serious in battle, oh man was he the formidable king of the underworld everyone pictured when they thought of Hades.

“You’ve been holding back on me, Hades,” Taemin chastised, feeling the terrifying aura Sanghyuk was now giving off.

“My apologies,” Sanghyuk laughed, sounding wholly demonic. “I wanted a fair fight.”

“Humble as always, I see,” another voice chimed in. The tell-tale sparkle of magenta as a figure formed out of the dust cued everyone in to who it was.

“I was wondering where you went, mage,” Taemin practically spat. Clearly, he was another servant that wasn’t a fan of magic users.

“Scared of me?” Hakyeon teased, fully forming by Sanghyuk’s side.

“Don’t make me laugh. As if a third-rate servant has any chance of winning against me. Not to mention the three top classes have a resistance to magic. You do realize that taking Lancer to the end will guarantee him as the winner of everything, right?”

A strong wind that came from nowhere blew Hakyeon’s cloak away from his body as three purple magical hexagrams appeared behind him, poised and ready to attack with whatever spell was charged within them.

“Underestimate me, swordsman,” Hakyeon said. “It’ll be the last thing you do.”

“Not to mention you completely forgot about me,” Jaehwan whined, stepping up to join the remaining two servants on Sanghyuk’s other side. “Again!”

“What a team you three make,” Taemin chuckled.

“As much as I despise working with… Sanghyuk.” The way Hakyeon hesitated on saying Sanghyuk’s name told Taekwoon he had wanted to say something much more demeaning. “You’ve killed friends and allies here tonight and I simply cannot let their sacrifices go in vain,” Hakyeon finished.

“How noble of you,” Taemin mocked. “It’s the name of the game. Nothing personal. You attack me, I attack you, someone’s bound to die.”

“Even so, you’re going to pay,” Sanghyuk said.

“So are we just going to talk the rest of the night away or can we get to killing you?” Jaehwan asked in a singsong voice that didn’t match his dark statements in the least bit.

“By all means,” Taemin answered, taking a mocking bow.

And with that, the last leg of the battle began. For better or for worse, the biggest battle of the Grail War so far would end here.

Sanghyuk practically zipped across the battlefield, chasing after Taemin with incredible speed as the saber servant tried to put distance between himself and his opponents. Hakyeon leapt back in to the air, his long cloak turning in to angelic wings as he summoned a few more hexagrams and waited for the right time to strike. Jaehwan disappeared from the battlefield, having realized he couldn’t move nearly fast enough to keep up with Sanghyuk and Taemin and deciding to lurk on the sidelines for a chance at a sneak attack.

Taekwoon watched the battle in morbid curiosity. The same curiosity that left everyone still in the park mesmerized and completely rooted in place. He remembered the last battle Sanghyuk had gone ‘all out’ in; the one against Baekhyun only the other day. Seeing Sanghyuk now however, made him realize his servant had been holding back then as well. Maybe the mana boost Taekwoon’s kiss had given him was to blame but Taekwoon couldn’t be sure. He saw a new determination in the man as he fought. Sanghyuk was usually so sarcastic, hardly looking like he took whatever situation he was in seriously. Even when he was close to death, mortally wounded by Taemin, did he seem even remotely concerned about himself. Now however, the death of his friend seemed to have lit a fire within him. Not a single careless action to be found. Taekwoon finally saw just how much the man actually cared about the people around him in his determination to win. A side of himself that was usually so carefully guarded by sarcastic comments, faked bravado, and mischievous actions.

Watching Sanghyuk fight at full power, with complete determination and focus was truly awe-inspiring. Taekwoon should kiss him more often if it inspired him to fight seriously for once.

He moved fast, matching Taemin’s speed easily now with the extra mana. His moves were sharp, powerful, and Taemin clearly hadn’t been expecting such a drastic change. For most of the beginning of the battle, Taemin was on the defensive, avoiding Sanghyuk’s attacks at all costs with frantic worry on his face. To be honest, Taekwoon hadn’t been expecting such a drastic change either. He had no idea that the previous battles had left Sanghyuk so depleted. He wondered why his servant had never said anything. If his servant hadn’t wanted to worry him with his problems, he had certainly done a horrible job tonight. Especially with how this battle quickly turned around now that he was serious about it.

But after a few clashes between lance and sword, it became evident that even Taemin had more to draw upon in terms of fighting abilities than what he had previously been showing. Even with the inability to use his more high-powered moves, curtesy of Seokjin, he was a formidable foe. Taekwoon supposed you didn’t get the title of ‘world’s greatest swordsman’ for nothing; and being a Saber servant, the strongest class a servant could be summoned as, certainly helped a person’s abilities along.

Both servants were on the offensive as they fought now, ruthlessly crossing weapons again and again. Both deflected each other’s attacks with practiced ease, both were masters of their preferred weapon and it showed plain as day. At times the two of them moved so fast, Taekwoon could hardly make out what their exact movements actually were.

Taekwoon was on edge the entire time. If he were sitting he’d definitely be on the very edge of his chair as he watched the battle unfold. Sanghyuk was still very much injured; the deep gash in his lower abdomen would take some time to heal and a very powerful healing spell that Taekwoon wasn’t even sure he would be able to cast in the condition he was in. And though Sanghyuk didn’t act at all affected by his injuries, it was completely impossible that he actually didn’t feel any pain.

Taekwoon himself, was beginning to feel rather drained. Sanghyuk was a powerful servant and as such required a large amount of magical energy to just maintain a physical form, not to mention even fight or use any of his other abilities. Taekwoon was beginning to understand everyone’s shock at his ability to have summoned Sanghyuk in the first place. He really was hopelessly inexperienced, and that fact was only reinforced the longer this battle raged on as he sat on the sidelines, unable to do anything of value besides watch and pray his servant came out of this alive. His realization was also spurred on by watching Hakyeon fight from the skies.

When he crossed paths with the caster servant what felt like weeks ago but was really only days, he’d gotten just a taste of what the man was really capable of. Now however, there was no reason for him to hold anything back and Hongbin certainly wasn’t going to tell him to stop any time soon like he had the other night. The man’s skills were godlike; though, Taekwoon supposed that made a lot of sense considering he actually was a god. Spell after spell, casted again and again from summoned masses of glowing purple swirls of pure mana, rained down on the battlefield, causing even more chaos and confusion. Hongbin had told Taekwoon once that as a caster servant, Hakyeon had his own source of mana that he could generate after some time to sustain himself and not drain his master’s mana after only a few high-level spells. That was probably why Hakyeon hadn’t fought in any of the previous battles and why he was so annoyed to have to fight during this one. It apparently took time to build up a large mana source and using it all in one battle probably wasn’t preferable, but his hard work was being put to good use. From what he remembered, Caster was one of the lesser servants but the word ‘lesser’ really didn’t hold much weight. Even at Taekwoon’s strongest he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hold his own against a mage of such high caliber. Even if Taemin was a servant with a high level of resistance to magic, Hakyeon’s constant barrage of magic raining down form the heavens had to be a huge annoyance for the swordsman. Because even if the magic did significantly less damage than it would have against a different servant, it was still something to be avoided so Sanghyuk couldn’t get the upper hand over him.

Fire rained down from the sky in calculated bursts, strong bolts of lightning struck the ground in flashes of blinding light, purple tendrils of swirling energy hit with impact that staggered both servants on the battlefield. Hakyeon certainly was a force to be reckoned with.

Taekwoon remembered what Sanghyuk had told him about Zelos, the god of jealousy. As one of Zeus’ winged soldiers, Sanghyuk had called Hakyeon the most annoying of the bunch. As a caster servant, Sanghyuk had speculated that the man came into the battle equip with all his mind-altering abilities that he had as a god. He hadn’t used any kind of spell or ability like that so far in the Grail War. Maybe it was because he didn’t have any sort of ability like that or maybe, and most likely, it was for strategic purposes. Like he didn’t want everyone to know his true nature just yet. That in and of itself worried Taekwoon a lot, right next to Jaehwan’s unknown identity and equally as mysterious abilities. If Hakyeon was keeping his abilities hidden now, in one of the last, if not _the_ last battle, then that had to mean he was saving it for after Taemin was no longer a threat, when only Sanghyuk and Jaehwan were left to stand against him. That couldn’t have been a good sign for what was to come, because Taekwoon highly doubted Hakyeon didn’t have any mind-altering abilities. He was the god of jealousy after all. Sanghyuk had been right a few nights past: they couldn’t count any servant out just by knowing their class. And even knowing their true identity didn’t give them much of an edge since knowing what they could potentially be capable of scared Taekwoon more than not knowing who they were in the first place. Sanghyuk really was the only one Taekwoon could completely trust out here.

Looking back down to the battle on the ground, Taemin and Sanghyuk were still going at each other in full force. Taekwoon could clearly see Sanghyuk’s determination to end this battle, his desperation to make sure no one else he cared about died on this night. It was in his every movement. Taekwoon hadn’t seen such a serious side to his servant before. Sure, he’d seen hints of it, but it had been almost immediately hidden away seconds later. Why the man didn’t want anyone to know how much he actually cared didn’t make much sense to Taekwoon but now, his heart was completely on his sleeve.

With his desperation however, came a lot more recklessness. Even with Hakyeon being a general annoyance and forcing Taemin to be constantly on the move to avoid any direct hits, Sanghyuk blatantly did not care for his own well-being. For every hit Taemin blocked, there was an attack Sanghyuk did not even bother with. Taemin got caught by Sanghyuk’s lance more than a few times as well but his injuries were hardly comparable to Sanghyuk’s. Taekwoon understood now why Sanghyuk could not promise that he wouldn’t get hurt on the battlefield. It was because Sanghyuk had thrown defense completely out the window in his reckless determination to win. For a moment, Taekwoon wanted to run and do whatever he could to help. Watching someone he had grown to care deeply about in such a short amount of time take hit after hit worried him to no end. But with Hakyeon’s destructive magic and how fast Sanghyuk and Taemin were actually moving, Taekwoon got the feeling he’d die long before he got the chance to even make it over to the fight.

So he stayed where he was, watching the battle with his worry becoming deeper and deeper. If Sanghyuk came out of this alive, it was going to be a whole other battle to keep him that way. Taekwoon wasn’t an experienced mage, that much was clear to anybody who talked to him long enough about magic. He had no idea what kinds of spells were written in to his family’s crest. And even if there was a powerful enough healing spell to fully heal Sanghyuk, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to cast it. Sanghyuk’s exhaustion was becoming his own. He felt shaky, as if a small breeze could knock him over if he wasn’t prepared for it. Sanghyuk had said that if he were completely drained of mana, it would feel as if every nerve in his body was tearing away from him. He remembered such a feeling from the night he summoned Sanghyuk. He wasn’t anywhere near that level of pain but if the battle kept going on the way it was… he could very well be in trouble soon. He could only imagine how Minho was feeling. If he was feeling this bad, Minho had to be feeling it just as much if not more. But yet, the battle raged on. Clings of metal against metal combined with the destructive force of magic echoed around the small park. How they hadn’t attracted any onlookers or law enforcement by now with the amount of noise, flashing lights, and utter destruction the heroic spirits were causing was truly a miracle.

Taemin was fierce with his movements, always sharp, always completely calculated and masterfully placed. Sanghyuk was energetic, commanding attention despite how much it must’ve hurt to fight with such force. Hakyeon was a sort of deadly graceful, his magic casted with complete control despite how hard such an unpredictable energy was to actually control.

But something away from the battle suddenly caught Taekwoon’s attention. Looking back over to his alliance members, it took him a moment to realize exactly what was happening. Hongbin stood stock still, watching his servant in the sky with complete focus. He wore a look of worry that Taekwoon knew very well. Wonsik looked to be talking to someone in front of him but as far as Taekwoon could see, no one was there. He must’ve been discussing something with Jaehwan who was still nowhere to be seen on the battlefield. Namjoon was also no longer on the battlefield or anywhere else in the park. Taekwoon wouldn’t have been surprised if the boy just went home. He definitely didn’t blame him, seeing someone he cared deeply about die would weigh anyone down.

Then Taekwoon realized what had really caught his eye in the first place. Hoseok was no longer in the spot on the ground where he had been moments ago. Taekwoon looked frantically around the park, worrying that something might have happened to him while everyone was completely focused on the battle between the three servants. He found the teen, however, on the outskirts of the battle. He was halfway across it, running completely focused at an unknown target. Following Hoseok’s trajectory, Taekwoon clearly saw what the boy was going for.

Minho stood across from where the members of Taekwoon’s alliance were, looking as if he wasn’t holding up too well against how much mana his servant was using to fight but yet was completely emerged in the fight. So much so that he didn’t even notice Hoseok quickly gaining ground on him. Taekwoon was entirely too far to stop whatever Hoseok was about to do. He looked back towards Hongbin and Wonsik in his confusion, hoping that maybe they had some insight to what was going on. They too had noticed what Hoseok was up to but they both looked just as confused as to what was going on. Hongbin looked to Taekwoon then with a sort of horrified realization. Clearly, Hoseok was trying to get his own sort of vengeance for his fallen servant. But if he was going to engage in a full out magic duel with Minho, he wouldn’t last too long. Even in his depleted state, Minho was a much more experienced mage and Hoseok wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

A silent understanding passed between Hongbin, himself, and Wonsik then. Not wanting to lose yet another friend on this night, the three of them started running after Hoseok. The battle between Sanghyuk and Hakyeon against Taemin raged on; the three of them were completely unaware of what was transpiring between their masters. Taekwoon weaved around the debris Hakyeon’s magic caused as he ran. He knew he wasn’t going to catch up to Hoseok before he reached Minho, but he could at least get there to intercede on the impending doom. Minho saw Taekwoon running at him before he realized there was a much closer threat. Taekwoon waved his arms, trying to cue the man in to what was going on and direct his attention to the more eminent danger running at him, but his attempts were more of a distraction than an assistance. Hoseok tackled him to the ground, no magic necessary. After a bit of wrestling in the grass where Minho really didn’t have much of a chance in his surprise and against such a beefy guy like Hoseok, Hoseok pulled the both of them back up into a standing position. He had Minho in a headlock, holding the other man in front of him like a hostage. There was a conjured knife pressed against the skin of Minho’s neck as Hoseok, with tears straining down his face, threatened the man into cooperation.

Taekwoon, Hongbin, Wonsik reached the two of them, skidding to a halt and not daring to move any closer in case Hoseok decided to do something rash.

“Hoseok, what are you doing?” Hongbin asked, putting his arms out in front of him to show he wasn’t going to attack. No one dared step any closer.

“I’m ending this! Right here. Right now.” Hoseok said. His voice cracked over his words from tears he didn’t even bother holding back. Minho stood as still as he could, the threat of death against his neck keeping him from making any sudden movements, but he clutched the arm Hoseok had around his neck tightly with a look of fear in his eyes.

The battle raging behind them between the servants suddenly stopped as its participants realized what was going on outside of their conflict. Taemin was the first to notice and was immediately distressed by the situation, the worry clear as day on his face. With blatant disregard for his own safety, he completely turned his back on his opponents to dash to where his master was being held captive.

“Don’t!” Hoseok yelled at the man as he reached the group. Sanghyuk and Hakyeon were slower to react but the both of them moved to stand behind their respective masters when they overcame their shock. Taekwoon looked back to Sanghyuk as the man pulled off his hood once more. He looked worse for the wear and though a pang of worry went through Taekwoon at an up-close view of the damage Taemin had done, there were more pressing matters to deal with at this moment. “Don’t come any closer! I won’t hesitate!”

Hoseok pressed the knife a little harder against Minho’s neck. Beads of red formed along the edge of the blade as it broke skin. A look of worried pain took over Minho’s expression. Taemin halted his movements immediately, eyes wide with fear as he looked at his master in danger.

“Put the sword down,” Hoseok demanded and instantly the sword in Taemin’s hand fell to the ground and disappeared.

“Hoseok,” Wonsik tried now. Everyone wanted Saber out of the battle. Everyone was upset with the way this battle was going. But this way of winning? No one wanted that. “Are you really threatening to kill a man right now?”

“I don’t want to kill him,” Hoseok said. “But for Hyungwon… for Seokjin, and for anyone else he would have killed tonight, I’m ending this here!”

“This isn’t the way to do it. They wouldn’t want this. Hyungwon wouldn’t want you to become a murderer,” Taekwoon said. “Do you really want to win this way?”

“Don’t patronize me, Taekwoon!” Hoseok snapped. “Don’t lecture me on what’s right and what’s wrong. For someone so powerful, you’re hopelessly ignorant and wholly stupid. If the situation was reversed, Minho would do the exact same thing! Only difference is whoever he was versing would already be dead.

“You’re too kind, Taekwoon. And you’ve already been taken advantage of for that fact. Hongbin and Wonsik will turn on you the second Saber’s dead. Do you even want to win, Taekwoon? Because if you’re not here to win, then you’re just stealing wishes from people who really need them, and you don’t deserve to be here. Fucking man up and do what needs to be done instead of worrying about other people or you’ll be the next one to die.”

Taekwoon was shocked into silence. He knew Hoseok was in a dark place, but these thoughts had to have come from somewhere. He had no idea Hoseok thought those things; he wondered if the others held those same thoughts. He felt Sanghyuk’s hand slide in to his when he said nothing in response to Hoseok’s harshly true words. He squeezed his hand, a silent comfort that Taekwoon was very thankful for in this moment.

“So I’m going to do what you’re too afraid to do,” Hoseok said with finality. He directed his next words at Minho. “I’m giving you two options. Either use your command seals to force Saber to kill himself or I kill you.”

“Hoseok, what are you saying?!” Hongbin shouted.

“This is crazy!” Wonsik agreed.

“Are you insane?” Minho asked. “How old are you? Seventeen, eighteen? Do you want to live with murder for the rest of your life?”

“Don’t make me a murderer, then.”

Taemin said nothing in this whole exchange, seemingly debating what little options he had left in his mind.

“I can’t kill him!” Minho shouted, clearly distressed, eyes never leaving his servant as he spoke. “You clearly cared a lot about your servant, right? Could you have killed him in this situation?!”

“Master,” Taemin suddenly spoke up. “…Minho, you don’t have to make this decision.”

He conjured a short but very sharp blade in his hand, stepping into the middle of the divide between Hoseok and Minho and the rest of the alliance. He walked with determination, a sort of finality that made even Taekwoon’s heart wrench as everyone in the park realized what he was about to do. Even as a formidable servant who had taken out two of their friends and allies, he didn’t deserve a death like this. It was the name of the game, as Taemin had said at the beginning. Kill or be killed… it was inevitable they would lose someone close to them. But no one had been prepared for it.

“What?” Minho asked, there were tears forming in his eyes now. “What are you saying? What are you doing?”

“Making this decision for you. You’ve got to keep on living, Minho. Make things right, do what I could not in my lifetime. Only one of us needs to die here tonight… And I’ll make sure it’s not you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it took me entirely too long to write this chapter and I apologize for that. I had the hardest time with it for no real reason. So thanks for waiting and putting up with my absolutely sporadic update times. 
> 
> Oh and follow me on Twitter! @AAvery151 I don't post a lot but I could start posting updates on stories and ideas if enough people are interested. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments appreciated.


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